The Pittsburgh Penguins turned in yet another lackluster effort, as they dropped their second straight game, this time a 5-1 loss to the Detroit Red Wings.
Despite Penguins captain Sidney Crosby, who was a game-time decision with an undisclosed illness, being able to take his regular spot on the Pens’ top line, they were unable to muster much scoring.
Discipline was also an issue for Mike Johnston’s squad. They took 64 minutes’ worth of penalties, including a game misconduct by Kris Letang, two separate 10-minute misconducts by Steve Downie, and one by Chris Kunitz.
The Red Wings scored first, just 1:21 into the second period as Riley Shehan deflected a Marek Zidlicky shot in past Penguins goaltender Marc-Andre Fleury.
The game was still close until the end of the first period. At 18:06 of the opening frame, Teemu Pulkkinen capped off a long shift in the Penguins zone when his one-timer beat Fleury.
Then, at 19:18 of the first, a melee broke out that saw Justin Abdelkader for Detroit and Kunitz and Paul Martin for Pittsburgh all go off for roughing. 30 seconds later, Brandon Sutter was whistled for tripping, and the period ended with the Red Wings on a 5-on-3 power play.
At the end of the period, Kunitz was given another two minutes and a 10-minute misconduct for shooting a puck at a referee. The Red Wings wasted no time taking advantage, as Zidlicky got his third point of the afternoon with a power play goal at 00:39 of the second period.
Henrik Zetterberg continued the rout when he finished a tic-tac-toe play from Danny DeKeyser and Sheahan at 7:44 of the second. After the Red Wings fourth goal, Johnston pulled Fleury in favor of Thomas Greiss. Fleury took the loss while making 12 stops on 16 shots.
The change in goaltenders didn’t slow down the Red Wings attack, as Pulkkinen got his second of the afternoon and fifth of the season at 3:02 of the third period. His initial shot attempt was blocked by Ian Cole but deflected off backchecking Pens forward David Perron and into the net to give Detroit a 5-0 advantage.
Perron broke Petr Mrazek’s shutout bid at 9:10 of the third on a feed from Crosby, but that was all the offense the Pens could manage. Crosby’s assist gave him 71 points on the season, one behing current NHL scoring leader John Tavares of the New York Islanders.
Mrazek made 42 saves to even his career record against the Penguins at 1-1. The young Czech netminder earned the game’s number one star.
The Penguins got even more bad news post-game as Patric Hornqvist, who did not play the final 8:12 of the game, could have a serious injury.
“We’ll find out tomorrow,” Johnston said after the game about Hornqvist’s prognosis. “It looked bad when he came off the ice.”
Center Evgeni Malkin missed the game with a lower-body injury suffered on Saturday against Boston.
The Penguins have the day off tomorrow and will travel to New Jersey for a 7:00 p.m. faceoff with the Devils.
Photo credit: NHL
