Time for John Tortorella to cry into yet another Penguins infused beer. His Columbus Blue Jackets lost again to the evil Penguins. He has painted his team as the victim and they continue to play the role. That isn't to say the Blue Jackets aren't in a position to turn the tables this year, it's just that they haven't yet.
Pittsburgh once again found success on the power play and scored twice on the advantage. They also received a couple of even-strength goals from two players that have been struggling to find the back of the net in Jake Guentzel and Conor Sheary. Guentzel's goal tied the game late in the third period to force overtime. The Penguins not only had a Sidney Crosby goal called back, but had to kill a penalty in the extra session. Sid and Geno iced the game with their shootout goals. Pittsburgh was able to gain two points on the Blue Jackets in their last two games. That is good considering how the league's standings points system is. There is still an uphill battle though. They are three points out of a playoff spot and only Columbus and Washington have played in as many games as Pittsburgh. They need a winning streak in the worst way. They have the Hurricanes on Friday night which is a very important standings game and then have the Detroit Red Wings who are one of seven teams with a worse goal differential on the season. Then the next three games are all in the division (PHI, CAR, NYI) Huge stretch ahead. Doing poorly could effectively end the season.
The Penguins PDO issues are well documented to this point. It's been historically bad and is negatively impacting their season. When will it turn around? That's the magic question that nobody has an answer to. I can't think of another sport that has more randomness than hockey. It is something you have to accept when trying to understand what is happening on the ice. Sidney Crosby, Erik Karlsson, and Kris Letang have some of the worst PDO's in the league. You can throw in Joe Thornton, Brent Burns, and Oliver Ekman-Larsson in the mix as well. That's how it goes sometimes. Are we to believe players of that caliber forgot how to play hockey? That's nonsense. The only way to chip away at a league worst PDO is hope regression kicks in (when?) or you can start to control the flow of the game more.
Here is some good news if you want to look at the glass half-full approach. In the last 25 games the Penguins have improved in that area. They were around the middle of the pack for a while, but in the most recent stretch they have the fourth best Score-Adjusted Fenwick at 53.81%. That's a step in the right direction. You mix that in with some PDO regression and now you have the ability to rattle off some wins. It's just a matter of how big of a hole they are in before that starts to click. Wins like last night keep the hole from getting bigger.
Getting healthier will help, too. Kris Letang and Justin Schultz missing from the lineup is less than ideal. Even Chad Ruhwedel went down last night which leaves the Penguins without any of their right defensemen for the moment. Schultz is back skating and Letang is "day to day" so help may be on the way. They'll need it. It's do it or don't time for the season.
Thanks for reading!