'Passive' Penguins throw away four-goal lead in overtime loss

Bryan Rust scored for another goal from the top line, and the Penguins got depth scoring with goals from Jesse Puljujarvi and P.O Joseph. The Penguins dominated in shots on goal and shot attempts, in part due to strong defending. The Avalanche had a number of odd-man rushes that never amounted to even a shot on goal, because the defensemen backchecked like their lives depended on it and broke up scoring opportunities. When Alex Nedeljkovic was tested in net, he was solid, like on this Avalanche shorthanded rush:

"You could see by the first half of the game, we play on our toes, we play in their face, we can be better than any team," a frustrated Rust said of that first half. "When we play passive and we don't play in their face, I think that's when things kind of go the wrong way." 

Things started to go the wrong way rather quickly.

The Avalanche got on the board 25 seconds after Joseph's goal, with Sean Walker taking a shot from the point through traffic that slipped past Nedeljkovic. The Avalanche got another one in the final minute of the second period, with Yakov Trenin deflecting a shot from the crease. Drouin was left wide-open at the right circle early in the third, and capitalized on the opportunity when Nathan MacKinnon found him with a cross-ice pass. 

Casey Mittelstadt ran into Nedeljkovic shortly after and made contact with Nedeljkovic's mask. Nedeljkovic was down on the ice for some time after, and had to be tended to by head athletic trainer Chris Stewart. Nedeljkovic got back up and got back in the crease -- he later said he felt fine and his ears stopped ringing before Stewart even made it out to him -- but he didn't stay in net for long. At the next stoppage a league concussion spotter pulled Nedeljkovic, forcing him to return to the locker room and run through some tests to check to see if he had a concussion. Tristan Jarry entered the game and played 10:05, stopping four of five shots faced, allowing the tying goal by MacKinnon. Nedeljkovic was cleared and got back in the net to finish the game.

Nedeljkovic was asked about the two very different halves of regulation.

"I don’t care much about how the first half went," Nedeljkovic said through shakes of his head. "It was a great first half and then we had a great 36 minutes there. They got a good shot, finally found a lane through the point. Good seeing-eye shot, and then they got another one off the crossbar right back in the middle. I don’t know. I felt like they had four chances on me and they scored four goals."

Lars Eller spoke of the Penguins getting passive.

"We just didn't keep our feet moving, really," Eller said of the collapse. "I think we kind of started watching a little bit and we gave them an inch and they take advantage of every bit of space they got. We didn't do a good enough job playing without the puck."

Marcus Pettersson pointed specifically to the Penguins getting away from that exceptional rush defense that they had in the first half.

"We allowed them to seam us," Pettersson said. "The rushes killed us. They're good off the rush, they slow down, they find seams. We have to do a better job of filling guys in the middle and not chasing pucks outside. There were just too many seams open."

The Penguins held on for overtime ... and extra frame was short-lived. Drouin ended it 54 seconds in. The Penguins haven't been great in overtime this year -- obviously. They're 3-8 in games that end in three-on-three overtime. But this specific overtime loss doesn't have anything to do with a game plan or a "scheme." This is just Kris Letang getting beat. The Penguins do occasionally devote time to practicing three-on-three, but making sure you're keeping your feet moving so you don't get beat one-on-one like this isn't something that needs practice:

“I just saw Letang kind of flat-footed," Drouin said of the play. "I got some speed and Cale (Makar) made a great pass at the right time. I thought I could beat him wide and beat the goalie, and happily it worked out.”

Eller, asked what the team can take away from this game, said that they're "capable of playing really good hockey for almost two periods or half a game."

"So if you can do it for 30 minutes, I think you can do it for 60," Eller said. "But we just didn't for whatever reason. We didn't do that."

A terse Mike Sullivan used a common refrain of his when speaking about the loss.

"I thought we competed hard," he said. "That's one of the most explosive offenses in the league that we played against. We knew they were going to push back. We competed hard."

Despite all that competing hard, the Penguins have now lost three straight games, and four of their last five. They're still ranked seventh in the division. At 70 points in the standings through 70 games, they're nine points out of a wild card spot and eight points out of falling to next-to-last in the entire division. 

This one point lost in the standings tonight probably wouldn't have moved the needle much. The Penguins would be in the same position in the standings, with a significant gap and five teams separating them from a playoff position. They aren't coming back from this. The blown lead today just served as a reminder of how far they've fallen.