The Pittsburgh Penguins couldn't hold down their lead and suffered the consequences of not capitalizing on opportunities.
PITTSBURGH - For a good majority of their first game back home, the Pittsburgh Penguins looked like they were on their way to kicking their four-game losing streak.
Thanks to an inability to shut down the Boston Bruins, the Penguins suffered an overtime defeat in a game they should have walked away with.
At one point the Penguins were winning 5-2 and were getting contributions from all over the lineup.
Captain Sidney Crosby opened the scoring just 30 seconds into the game; the Bruins answered back with a pair of goals of their own, but the Penguins had their own response.
Evgeni Malkin, Josh Archibald, Bryan Rust, and Rickard Rakell all scored in the second period to push the Penguins ahead with a commanding three-goal lead.
The onslaught was enough for the Bruins to pull their starting goalie Linus Ullmark for Jeremy Swayman; Ullmark would eventually go back in net as Swayman suffered what looked like a knee injury.
The Penguins sticks would go silent, however, as the Bruins put up three unanswered goals to tie the game late.
“When you get a two-goal lead going into the third, you’re in a good position to win,” Penguins head coach Mike Sullivan said. “And we had opportunities to win that we didn’t take advantage of.”
One of the biggest opportunities occurred in the overtime period when the Bruins took a penalty giving the Pens a man advantage.
The Penguins only recorded a single shot for the full two minutes and not long after the Bruins tucked the game away with the overtime winner.
“We got to make better decisions with the puck,” Sullivan said. “We just have to manage the game better. You don’t have to manufacture things that aren’t there.”
The losing streak rages on for the Penguins as they travel for their third straight back-to-back situation and first in the month of November.
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