In what has become an epidemic for the Penguins, the Dallas Stars scored a power play goal to beat the Penguins 3-2 in Pittsburgh on Thursday night.
Tyler Seguin collected a cross-ice pass from Jason Spezza and flicked a shot under the blocker of Marc-Andre Fleury to give the Stars their first lead of the game with just 2.9 seconds remaining.
It seemed as if Fleury had a chance to make a save on the shot, but it skipped off the underside of his blocker and into the net. Fleury has stopped only 13 of 18 shots on the penalty kill so far, good for an abysmal .667 save percentage, which is dead last in the league.
The penalty kill has been the team’s Achilles’ heel through three games this season, with six of their nine goals allowing coming down a man. Even more frustrating is that many of the goals have followed a similar formula: a player on the half wall is able to make a pass that cleanly finds its way through the box of penalty killers for a wide open one-timer.
Even worse news for the Penguins came in the middle of the second period. With seven minutes remaining, Evgeni Malkin passed to Kris Letang at the left point. As Letang was winding up for a shot, Stars defenseman Alex Goligoski cross-checked Pascal Dupuis in the back and knocked him to the ice in front of the net. Letang’s slap shot came in and struck Dupuis in between the helmet and his shoulder pads in the back of his neck. Dupuis immediately fell to the ice and had to be taken off the ice on a stretcher.
Head Coach Mike Johnston said after the game, “[Dupuis] had some numbness in his arms and [feeling] was coming back, and that was a real positive sign, but I haven’t heard anything more. I’m sure they’re doing a lot of tests on him right now.”
TVA Sports’ Renaud Lavoie reported that Dupuis was taken to a Pittsburgh-area hospital for examination.
The Penguins never seemed to recover from the blow of losing its second line forward, and Dallas controlled the flow of play for the remainder of the game.
Pittsburgh started out on fire, dominating the first period with two power play goals from Sidney Crosby and Chris Kunitz. The team finished the day two for four on the power play and remains first in the league with a 54.5% success rate.
Dallas drew to within one in the second period when Rob Scuderi lost track of Antione Roussel in the defensive zone and Vernon Fiddler made pass through the crease to find him.
In a bizarre sequence late in the third period, Dallas had a Jason Spezza goal waved off because of goaltender interference by Segiun. It appeared that Malkin had tripped Seguin on the play. Eight seconds later, Goligoski had a wide open chance from the left faceoff circle and hit the crossbar. Dallas kept pushing the play, and the Penguins were having trouble clearing their zone. Thirty seconds later, Jamie Benn put a rebound past Fleury to tie the game at two.
The Penguins will return to the ice on Saturday when they host the New York Islanders at 7:00 p.m.
(Photo Credit: Gregory Shamus / Getty Images)
