The Pittsburgh Penguins will try to rebound from one of their most shocking losses in recent memory when they host the Montreal Canadiens on Thursday.
The Penguins held a one-goal lead when they went on a power play with 18 seconds left in the third period against the visiting Anaheim Ducks on Tuesday. However, they surrendered a short-handed goal to Beckett Sennecke with one-tenth of a second remaining before losing 4-3 in a shootout.
“When are you going to see that happen again?” Pittsburgh center Sidney Crosby said. “We’ve just got to find a way to close it out. When you get in those situations late in games, it’s not usually pretty.”
The Penguins have seen themselves lose plenty of games that have gone beyond regulation this season. They’re 1-7 in those situations after their latest loss to Anaheim, including 0-5 in shootouts.
“We’re going to continue to evaluate from game to game,” Pittsburgh coach Dan Muse said of the shootout. “There’s a lot of things that get looked at. You look at our guys, the options we have (in the shootout). We’ll look at the goalie in the other net and if there’s anything where you think there could be an advantage.”
Pittsburgh will need to get by without veteran forward Evgeni Malkin, who was placed on injured reserve on Tuesday with an upper-body injury and is considered week to week. He has already missed two games — both shootout losses.
The Canadiens will be trying to shake off a 6-1 loss against the visiting Tampa Bay Lightning on Tuesday. Montreal gave up three goals in the first period.
“My biggest concern is these early goals in periods that we give up,” Montreal Coach Martin St. Louis said. “It’s concerning because it’s deflating.”
St. Louis did like the way his team picked things up after the first.
“You look at the second and, you know, I felt like we tried to do things right and didn’t give up much, we got a lot of chances,” he said. “I think being deflated is just a feeling that comes and you’ve got to brush it off pretty quick. You’ve got to go and work on your habits.”
The Canadiens have been on the wrong side of a number of one-sided games lately. They are 5-8-1 in their past 14 games with five of those losses coming by four or more goals.
“I think we’ve got to be a lot more mature,” Canadiens forward Cole Caufield said. “We can’t let games get out of hand like that. We’ve got to find ways to stop it and get the momentum back. We’ve just got to be a lot better. It’s pretty frustrating right now.”
Caufield said the problems have been a mix of execution, details, coverage and help defense — areas the Canadiens need to improve if they hope to be a legitimate playoff team.
“It hasn’t been consistent the last couple of weeks and we’ve got to fix that,” Caufield said.
Montreal could be ready to give some fresh faces a chance, as it recalled goaltender Jacob Fowler, defenseman Adam Engstrom and forward Owen Beck from Laval of the American Hockey League after the game on Tuesday.
“I think it starts with the individual, they’ve got to do the job no matter what,” St. Louis said. “The habits to me are an all-the-time thing, you can’t just do things right when you feel like it.”
–Field Level Media
