A maddening pattern of blown leads continues for the Penguins, who dropped their third straight game last night, all of them after holding a lead. Paul Steigerwald recaps the loss to the New York Islanders.
For some reason, Paul didn’t tell you what happened in the third period, when the Islanders tied it at 2 on a Bo Horvat goal at 8:35. That followed a poor clearing attempt by Pens defenseman P.O. Joseph. Then at the 10:15 mark, Anders Lee banged in a rebound after another wasted clearing attempt, this one by goaltender Tristan Jarry, to give the Isles their first lead. They later added an empty net goal by Brock Nelson, his second goal of the game.
Coach Mike Sullivan says the Penguins keep finding ways to lose.
Jarry says the Penguins missed another chance to help their playoff chances.
Forward Bryan Rust says the Penguins still haven’t learned to play basic simple hockey.
The game was marred by an all-out scrum near the end of the second period which resulted in more than 40 minutes of penalty time, including 14 each for the Penguins’ Jason Zucker and the Islanders’ Ross Johnston. That followed seconds after some pathetic officiating as Sidney Crosby and the Isles’ Sebastian Aho wrestled right in front of referee Peter MacDougall. Aho held Crosby pinned against the ice for ten full seconds and MacDougall chose to watch instead of calling a penalty.
Defenseman Jan Rutta missed his 14th straight game with an undisclosed injury. Forward Ryan Poehling and defenseman Mark Friedman both missed their fourth in a row.
The Penguins welcome the high-flying Edmonton Oilers to PPG Paints Arena on Thursday night.
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