About an hour ago
In the context of a 56-game season, Mike Sullivan realizes the increased gravity that comes with each competition in 2020-21.
“Each game has a high level of importance by nature of having fewer games to score points in the classification and to position itself, to establish itself in the classification,” said the Penguins coach by videoconference. “Every game is extremely important because there are fewer games and fewer opportunities to move up the ranks.”
After the second game of the campaign, the Penguins may want to invest in some carabiners and clamps because they have already fallen into a crack.
Allowing three goals in the first 11 minutes, 30 seconds of regulation, they were never able to recover and fell to the Flyers, 5-2, on Friday in a dispute that had few detailed moves from both teams, but full of action. The defeat made the Penguins a perfect 0-2-0 to open the season with 54 remaining, strictly against opponents from the Eastern Division.
The setback saw Penguins goalkeeper Tristan Jarry give up three goals, which was an improvement over the half dozen he conceded in Wednesday’s 6-3 loss in Philadelphia. But then again, he was pulled on Friday after only six shots.
In two games, Jarry made 22 saves in 31 shots for a defensive percentage of 0.710.
“With regard to the start of the Tristan season, it is difficult to give up that number of goals in a few shots or without many chances,” said Sullivan. “But for your defense, some of the chances were of high quality.”
Jarry’s defense by Sullivan was much tougher than the defense in front of him on the ice.
The first two goals from Philadelphia, a power-play score from striker Travis Konecny 7:27 for the competition and a uniform strength count from Konecny again just 2:59 later, each came directly into the blue paint. They were Konecny’s first goals of the season.
“We have to protect our front line a little better, help our goalkeepers,” said defender Penguins defender Chad Ruhwedel, who made his debut this season. “Just try to keep (the opposition) out of that blue ink.”
Certainly, the Flyers failed to score again in Jarry’s crease. Instead, they scored from the left circle when defender Ivan Provorov wrested Jarry’s blocker on the side near 11:30 in the first period for his first goal.
Sullivan had seen enough, pulling Jarry – possibly for humanitarian purposes – in favor of Casey DeSmith.
The Penguins seemed to respond to the change when they converted their first opportunity to power-play the game just 1:29 later. Striker Sidney Crosby managed to hit a deflected pass to the right of the line and hit a backhand on the nearest post and knocked goalkeeper Carter Hart down this second of the season.
The Penguins made it 3-2 just 32 seconds later. Striker Jared McCann fired into the offensive zone from the right wing and raised a wrister to the other side, which Hart hit with his blocker. Striker Brandon Tanev took advantage of the rebound and hit the net with a frontal shot for the second goal.
After that, the Penguins seemed to control the game by balancing a competition that was filled with special teams, as 12 separate power-play opportunities were distributed by the officials.
“We had a lot of chances,” said striker Bryan Rust. “We had countless chances there. We had many opportunities to tie the game and score some goals. We just weren’t able to do that. Fortunately, we can learn from that and just start adding more records. ”
After a second goalless period, Konecny completed his first hat-trick of his career at 12:53 in the third period, with a deflection of his left skate against DeSmith, which ended with 12 saves in 13 shots.
A goalkeeper for striker Oskar Lindblom, his second goal of the season, finished the scoring at 17:52 of the third and secured a victory for the Flyers and a start of the season without victories for the Penguins and Jarry.
“Tristan is a good goalkeeper,” said Sullivan. “He is a competitor. I know he will recover. ”
Seth Rorabaugh is a staff writer for the Tribune-Review. You can contact Seth by email at [email protected] or via Twitter .
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Penguins / NHL | sports