Bryan Rust sat prone in the left corner. It appeared he was the victim of a horse collar and dragged down from behind as he chased a loose puck.
The Pittsburgh Penguins lost 6-1 to the New York Rangers Saturday at PPG Paints Arena, and with a lopsided score, there are very few moments to circle that could have made a difference.
Ben Kindel scored his first NHL goal at 3:04 of the second period for the lone Penguins tally.
However, the Rangers tackling Rust without a call was probably the one moment, if any, that can be debated as a game-changer. The non-call on Rust itself was not the fulcrum of change, but the fallout was.
Was Rust fouled?
"I'm just not going to answer that," Rust said politely to avoid a letter from the league office requesting a tidy check for the transgression of criticizing officials.
Rust didn't miss the chance to let his feelings be known on the ice.
Sprawled on the ice with his legs extended, the heartbeat of the team sat up and vociferously let the nearby referee, Furman South, know the extent of his unhappiness. At the conclusion of the shift, Rust slammed his stick off the boards, and as it echoed through the arena, he hurled more unfriendly nomenclature towards the orange armbanded striped shirts.
His outburst worked, sort of, and that was when the game changed.
The referees immediately agreed with Rust that they should call the game differently and began calling the game tightly … beginning with the Penguins.
Trailing 2-1, the Penguins received three minor penalties in the next nine minutes. A 2-1 deficit quickly became a 4-1 Rangers lead and the end of the Penguins' competitiveness.
First, the rookie Kindel was called for, what was at best, a soft hooking minor. Replays confirmed the questionable nature of the call as it appeared more of an average stick check.
Parker Wotherspoon was whistled for tripping less than four minutes later, and then rookie Harrison Brunicke got a penalty for skating into a scrum in which a fallen teammate was being roughed up. Brunicke exchanged shoves and was grabbed from the Rangers bench, and received the only penalty, a roughing call.
The calls on the rookies were … interesting.
The game spiraled after the Rangers scored a pair of power-play goals, and the Penguins pressed. The Penguins' game quickly got away from the winning hockey they played in the first two games.
"I think it was our second (power play goal against), one that was off the faceoff. To go back and look, you want to get in shot lanes, but they got through," coach Dan Muse said. "We had the other one there–the play to the backside. Yeah, we're in the area, but you know, just being close isn't close enough. We have to make sure that we're eliminating sticks. Obviously, special teams made a big difference in the game. There'll be some stuff for us to look at there."
The first period was a good exposition of how the Penguins want to play and Muse's system.
Defensemen were deep in the offensive zone on every shift for the first 10 minutes. The Penguins dominated as they had four sticks in the fight at all times.
However, the Rangers countered by … not countering. The Penguins were sloppy, and the Rangers only needed to wait for mistakes to capitalize on, such as Sidney Crosby 's backhand pass into the slot and Erik Karlsson's passive defense on the resulting two-on-one.
"We've got to stay to our game consistently, Rust said. "I think when we get down a goal or two, we can't unravel and try and go for home run plays. I think we just have to stick to the game plan."
The Penguins just never really got into their game after the first 10 minutes. Chances became missed shots. Passes were just out of reach, in their skates, or to the wrong team.
Unraveled was the right term.
Penguins goalie Arturs Silovs allowed a couple of long shots by Adam Fox to zip past, and that was the end of the 82-0 dream.
There just wasn't a lot to like. In the first period, the Penguins dominated play for a good stretch and led the shot counter 9-4. It looked like they were on their way, but as happens so often when a team hits the turbo boost too soon and the other team weathers the onslaught, things change in a hurry.
"I liked our first period. You know, we gave up the shorthanded goal … but those things happen. And so if you look at the overall period, I thought we were doing a lot of good things," Muse said. "Even at the start of the second, I thought there was there was more good than there was bad. And then I think we just got away from our game a little bit. And so for me, the biggest lesson is that it doesn't matter if we're up, if we're down, if it's even. I think it's just that consistency that we want to have in our game. And so that's the biggest lesson I would be taking away right now."
No, we're not going to give Crosby a grade. He's earned a few hundred mulligans, but even he would probably admit that his game is out of sorts. He had a couple of offensive zone turnovers via forced backhand passes to the slot Saturday. Crosby was an uncharacteristic minus-3.
As memory serves, he started the same way last season before charging through the rest of the season.
The book on Silovs has thus far been prescient. Great saves. Sketchy rebound control. Beaten by long shots from the top of the zone. All three were in full view Saturday. He made some dandy saves, including a little kick save on Alex Lafreniere's quick rebound shot in the first period.
Fox beat him on a pair of shots from more than 40 feet away, and each a goalie should have had. Of course, there was also Matt Rempe 's goal, in which the giant 240-pound winger was easily felled by Ryan Shea 's breath, landing on Silovs and getting credit for the goal as the puck squibbed across the line.
Yes, the Penguins and Silovs rolled their eyes at how easily Rempe went down in the crease, but there was enough contact by Shea that the refs would not have overruled it.
He's good enough. He's smart enough. And doggone it, people like him. In a 6-1 blowout, Kindel was a plus-1 in nearly 15 minutes of ice time. Let that sink in.
His first NHL goal was everything that he brings to the table: Hustle, backcheck, zone awareness, speed (who knew?!), and a good wrister.
Nine-game tryout? Nope. You can go ahead and order your Kindel jerseys. Wes Clark and Kyle Dubas outsmarted everyone at the draft.
Dewar was on his toes. He got behind the defense in the first period and hit the far post. He poked another through Rangers goalie Igor Shesterkin , but the puck went wide. He was quite good Saturday.
Karlsson was engaged early, but then his laissez-faire defense on the shorthanded two-on-one unraveled his game. Karlsson was minus-3 with three giveaways.
Rust got after it in his usual style. To conclude the shift in which he was tackled, he retrieved a loose puck, cut along the goal line and almost stuffed it behind Shesterkin.
The move was vintage Rust, and he didn't lack for hustle or opportunity.
The post Penguins Report Card: First Stinker of the Season; Refs Punish Rookies appeared first on Pittsburgh Hockey Now .
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