Penguins Not Concerned About Old Habit Returning
The Pittsburgh Penguins are confident in their ability to not allow blown leads on a consistent basis moving forward.
For much of the 2022-23 season, the Pittsburgh Penguins struggled maintaining and closing out third period leads.
Considering they missed the postseason by a single point, if the Penguins were able to close out even one of those contests they were ahead in, the story of their year would have been far different.
As the 2023-24 season kicks off, and even with a ton of turnover in the lineup, it looks like that old habit is still lingering.
On the opening night of the season, the Penguins botched a 2-0 lead and allowed the Chicago Blackhawks to put up four unanswered goals.
While many would fear that the Penguins are a team who failed to learn anything, the players who throw on the uniform aren’t hitting the panic button.
“Obviously, tonight’s a tough one,” Tristan Jarry said following the defeat. “We would like to have it, but I think we’ll be stronger from it.”
If you take a look at the third goal the Blackhawks scored on Jarry, it’s fair to say it was an unfair bounce.
A shot was blocked by Sidney Crosby, but it found an open Jason Dickinson who found the back of the net with a lunging shot.
“You see their third goal, it was an unfortunate bounce,” Kris Letang said. “Sometimes it looks like bad luck, but we always say you create your own luck.”
Many within the Penguins also looked at the numerous new faces and concluded that it may take some time to mold as a more complete unit.
“There’s obviously going to be some adjustments just with the new guys that we have,” Jarry said. “We have to get familiar each other. The quicker we can do that, the quicker we’re going to be a good team.”
Head coach Mike Sullivan also realized that there is still a fair bit of learning between the new teammates, but the group should be better than what was displayed.
“I’d like to believe we’re a better team than we showed tonight,” Sullivan said. “It was a loose game. It was a high event game on both sides. That’s not the type of game that’s conducive to winning.”
It was an ugly way to end the first game of the season, especially considering how 2022-23 went for the Penguins, but there’s a lot of season left.
Sometimes, blown leads are inevitable, but the Penguins will need to minimize how many they give up; they’re a confident group and are hoping to learn from these early mistakes.
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