The power play has been good lately, but the Pittsburgh Penguins failed to convert on numerous opportunities.
PITTSBURGH - Just looking at the penalty summery against the New Jersey Devils, it’s hard to believe the Pittsburgh Penguins aren’t too far removed from scoring on the man advantage in 10 straight games.
The Penguins may have been without Kris Letang and newcomer Ty Smith was quarterbacking the blue line, but they failed to convert on eight opportunities, including a double-minor.
It’s safe to call that unacceptable, especially when even just one goal with a man advantage may have swung the momentum in a relatively close game.
The game itself featured a combined 30 minutes of penalties and that throws a wrench into the style of play the teams wanted to play, but the Penguins weren’t able to take advantage.
“The whole game was special teams, there was no flow in the game,” Mike Sullivan said. “That’s where the game tonight was won and lost.”
Despite the most recent performance, Sullivan said it was hard to be critical of the power play units pointing out how they’ve been difference makers for well over a few weeks.
“We’d like it to be better, but it’s been pretty darn good for a while,” Sullivan said. “I think we have to think in terms of, how do we get better job controlling 5-on-5 play? And create the balance we need through our lineup.”
Regardless of how good the power play has been in recent memory, you can’t let that many chances go unanswered.
If the game is going to be won or lost on special teams, like Sullivan said, there should be better results on the positive end.
“We just weren’t getting enough pucks or bodies to the net,” Bryan Rust said. “They did a good job of getting in the lanes. We were a little bit slow, maybe we didn’t make enough plays.”
Once again, however, the Penguins fell back on confidence in their group, noting that there has been great success as of late.
To be fair, two of the four goals scored against the Detroit Red Wings were while a man up, and they only have one chance against the New York Islanders.
“Our power play’s been good for a while,” Rust said. “It was just unfortunate that it was a bit of an off night.”
Sometimes, ‘off nights’ are going to happen; it’s just unfortunate for the Penguins that this one came during a period of sagging 5-on-5 play.
While the Penguins look for balance, they need to make sure the ‘off nights’ don’t continue for much longer.
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