PITTSBURGH — There are a lot of ways to lose in the NHL. There aren’t a lot of times that an NHL team goes on the power play nine times and ends up losing.
The Penguins managed to lose in that most unusual of ways Friday night.
Nine power plays, no goals.
The result: Devils 4, Penguins 2 at PPG Paints Arena.
“That’s a lot of opportunities, so it kind of hurts,” Jake Guentzel said after the Penguins ran their winless streak to 0-2-2, a bumpy run that includes three games in which they’ve lost a lead.
It wasn’t that long ago that the Penguins were performing at a level that appeared Stanley Cup-caliber. They were 13-2-1 since Nov. 17 to Dec. 20, a stretch that included a seven-game winning streak and a power-play goal in nine consecutive contests.
Their recent power-play prowess — the Penguins were 13-for-41 (31.7 percent) over their past 12 games — makes the goose egg against the Devils all the more puzzling.
“We weren’t as sharp. We tried to work through it,” coach Mike Sullivan said. “It’s hard to be too hard on this group; the power play has been winning games for us.”
Sullivan cited a weeks-long script flipping on the Penguins, and he’s not wrong.
“We need to do a better job controlling five-on-five play,” Sullivan said.
The Penguins were under 46 percent in Corsi For at five-on-five in each of their three periods against the Devils, according to Natural Stat Trick. They’ve been under 50 percent in Corsi For at five-on-five in 10 of the past 11 games.
Early in the season, even during an 0-6-1 funk in October and November, the Penguins were primarily at their best at even strength while their special teams struggled. It’s been the opposite for a couple of weeks, and the results have caught up with them.
Mike Sullivan: “There was no flow in the game tonight. It was all special teams, for the most part. That’s where the game was won and lost.”
— Pens Inside Scoop (@PensInsideScoop) December 31, 2022
Sullivan said there weren’t a lot of scoring chances for the Penguins or the Devils at five-on-five Friday night. However, that also meant the Penguins didn’t generate a lot of chances against an opponent that had lost eight of nine games.
One problem for the Penguins is that captain Sidney Crosby has cooled off after a white-hot stretch. He had a particularly frustrating game against the Devils, who blocked five of his seven attempted shots.
Crosby finished without a point for the third consecutive game, matching his longest pointless funk on the season — if, that is, three games without a point can be considered a funk.
The point isn’t that Crosby is at fault. Far from it.
If anything, it speaks to his Hart Trophy candidacy — at least, it should — that the Penguins are some-kinda-bad when he isn’t excellent. He had 11 goals and 14 assists during the Penguins’ 16-game hot streak that preceded their winless ways.
He can’t do everything. Not every game, anyway.
At least, he can’t do everything in every game anymore. Not near the midpoint of his 18th season.
That’s asking way too much and raises a few questions:
• Does Sullivan need to consider some harsh lineup decisions?
• Should general manager Ron Hextall be looking to make a trade?
If given a choice, the public would probably back “yes” as an answer to both questions. However, Sullivan is unlikely to sit veterans such as Jeff Carter or Brian Dumoulin — two players who draw the most ire from fans on social media — and Hextall’s hands are tied by the Penguins’ tight salary-cap situation.
Still, there is something to be said for trying something different. (To be fair, Sullivan did move Carter from center to right wing on the Penguins’ third line Friday night. That was different.)
Perhaps swapping Drew O’Connor, who scored in the Penguins’ previous game despite playing just over five minutes, for winger Danton Heinen, who hasn’t scored a goal in his past 26 games, would be a small-but-not-unwarranted. move. Although, O’Connor isn’t likely to carry the Penguins on a winning streak.
He might make a bit more of a difference than Heinen would in, say, the Winter Classic at Fenway Park on Monday afternoon. The Penguins could use some of what O’Connor brings — size and two-way steadiness — against the Bruins.
The Penguins could also use the return of Kris Letang, their top defenseman. He didn’t play against the Devils because of a lower-body injury. That meant the Penguins were again down their two top offensive catalysts on the back end, Letang and Jeff Petry, and those players’ respective absences were felt on the first and second power-play units.
Right, back to the power play.
In going 0-for-9, the Penguins set a low water mark for the Crosby era. They’ve gone 0-for-10 three times, the last one coming in 1988.
So, even the high-octane power plays led by Mario Lemieux had nights such as the one Crosby’s Penguins had Friday. The lesson: Weird stuff happens in hockey.
“We didn’t manage to settle it down or go into our set plays,” Rickard Rakell said of the Penguins’ power-play struggles against the Devils. “They did a good job of putting a lot of pressure on us.
“Chances were still there. But we didn’t manage the puck well. It’s tough to win hockey games when you get that many chances. It starts to get a little frustrating when it doesn’t go your way, and you lose a little confidence.”
Lost confidence isn’t an overarching issue with the Penguins, Guentzel said.
“Not at all,” he said. “We know this is a good team. We’ve just got to get back to doing some of the little things that were part of our game when we were winning.”
Could a big event such as the Classic help?
“Yeah, I think so,” Guentzel said. “It’ll be a good time to go on the road and bond as a team.”
(Photo of Evgeni Malkin: Philip G. Pavely / USA Today)
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