Mike Sullivan was relieved.
On March 10, the Penguins coach stood outside the visiting locker room of the Prudential Center in Newark, NJ, in downtown Newark, NJ, and suggested body language that suggested he was finally having a great conundrum.
In their previous 10 game battles, the Penguins lost eight of those games and rarely for convenience in the two they won. Add to that the fact that they were still working on some new players, arriving via trade in late February, and the Penguins were quite a team in flux.
But that night in Newark, the Penguins played nearly 60 minutes under their conditions, albeit against an appealingly underwhelming Devils team.
It was the first time they could call such an achievement in many weeks.
“That was one of the more complete games we’ve been playing for a while,” Sullivan said. ‘All four lines went. The defenders competed out. We played the game the right way. ”
The Penguins, returning in the previous offseason to be a deeper team tackling the opposition with speed and sound puck management, looked normal again.
Of course, this was the last time that everything would seem normal to her for months.
Two days later, the NHL went into hiatus due to the coronavirus pandemic, and what inertia the Penguins had deployed like the other 30 NHL teams came to a standstill.
Fast forward to August and the Penguins’ season came to an abrupt halt again, this time because of the Montreal Canadiens, who defeated the Penguins, 3-1, in their best-of-five qualifying round at Toronto’s Scotiabank Arena.
What successes or shortcomings the Penguins had in mid-March did not have much effect on their bad tones in early August. After their 2-0 loss to the Canadiens in Game 4 on Friday, the Penguins were hesitant to pull any connection after their disrupted regular season and their unappetizing postseason.
“I don’t think you can associate anything exactly that happened (in the offseason) with the regular season,” defender Kris Letang said via Toronto video conference. ‘The break we just witnessed was longer than an offseason. I thought guys prepared themselves well, but when the puck dropped, I think we faced a well-balanced team with a great goaltender who played better than us. You have to evaluate the season and the playoffs (as) two different things. ”
Here’s a look at what went wrong for the Penguins in four games over seven days.
1. Goaltending
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Montreal Canadiens goaltender Carey Price makes a path save against Penguins defender Kris Letang in the second period of Game 2 of her best-of-five qualifying series at the Scotiabank Arena in Toronto on Monday.
It is no insult to Tristan Jarry or Matt Murray to say that the 12-seeded Canadiens had the better government for this series.
It’s more a confirmation that Carey Price is still a master of his craft.
Rarely in the series did Price look angry because of the Penguins’ clever attack. Sure, there were rare occasions where those clever attacks posed a continuing threat to Price, especially when Penguins forward Conor Sheary failed to even hit it on a penalty kick in the third period of Game 1, but at one point Price looked unsure of himself.
If the Penguins played the 11-seeded New York Rangers, who hit Henrik Lundqvist’s husk in two nets for two games against the Carolina Hurricanes, the Penguins would probably have advanced. Instead, they received the inferior Canadiens and the superior Prize.
Maybe if the qualifier was a best-of-seven series instead of a best-of-five, the Penguins would have had enough time to reach a more powerful attack or they could have interrupted the prize. But this was the hand they were treated to.
Jarry and Murray were adequate in this series. And Murray was even the better goaltender in Game 2, a 3-1 win. But throughout the series, there was enough incremental space between Price and his Penguins counterparts to create a chasm.
2. Play power
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Penguins ahead Evgeni Malkin recorded 21 shots during a qualifying series against the Montreal Canadiens.
One of the few legal transfers from the regular season to the post season was the Penguins’ spray-painted power play.
Like the Penguins from October to March, the Penguins had moments in August where their power play looked dangerous, especially in Game 3, but had many other instances where they looked like they did not “play power” “could spell, even if they were spotted the two ‘Ps’.
And it was not only that power play did not produce in bulk as it did not come in vital nodes.
In Game 1, with the fantastic defensive center of the Canadiens, Philip Danault in the penalty area early in overtime, the Penguins had a chance to play on a fairly clean ice, but failed to score, only to later in ‘ the period to yield a goal. And in the late stages of Game 3, they got a chance with the man advantage while stepping through a goal. Working on choppy ice they could only get one shot on the net.
The power play could have been a dominant advantage for the Penguins. Instead, it was most inert, going 3 for 17 (17.7%).
3. Depth to the front
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Penguins ahead of Patrick Marleau clash with Montreal Canadiens defender Shea Weber during Game 3 of their qualifying match at the Scotiabank Arena in Toronto on Wednesday.
The return of a healthy Jake Guentzel, along with the rest of the regular season due to a devastating right shoulder injury in December, had a trickle-down effect on the Depths of the Penguins. With the return of Guentzel, Jason Zucker was knocked to the second line, and Patrick Marleau found himself on the third line.
On paper, the Penguins were one of the deepest teams in the mail season. In fact, they had only three lines representing each type of coherence.
The trio of Marleau, Jared McCann and Patric Hornqvist rarely show a chemistry. The abundance of special teams early in the series limited the time that group could get together on the ice, but it just never clicked for this group.
McCann was particularly disappointing. Asked to be a third-line center in the wake of Nick Bonino or Jordan Steel, he looked more like Derrick Brassard than Brandon Sutter. McCann’s game was so bad he was scratched in favor of rookie Sam Lafferty in Game 3.
Hornqvist played the same game he always offered, which may be limited, but it’s still effective. Marleau, on the other hand, was very ordinary. He looked like a 40-year-old who took four months off and due to the quarantine rules did not have much time on the ice.
4. Depth in the back
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Montreal Canadiens forward Jesperi Kotkaniemi scores on Penguins goaltender Matt Murray as Penguins forward Zach Aston-Reese (center) and defender Jack Johnson defend in the first period of Game 1 in their qualifying round at the Scotiabank Arena in Toronto on August 1st.
The Canadiens realized they had limitations with their third defensive pairing of Victor Mete and Xavier Ouellet. That suspicion was validated in Game 3 when they were overwhelmed by the line of Penguins of Zach Aston-Reese, Teddy Blueger and Brandon Tanev for a goal.
Knowing this, Canadiens coaches limit their playing time, and they only play a combined 104 minutes, 16 seconds of ice time in this series.
Meanwhile, the Penguins went much harder with their polite third pairing of Jack Johnson and Justin Schultz, who recorded a combined 137:57 of ice time.
Sure, a lot of that was dedicated to special teams, because Schultz works the power game and Johnson is a regular penalty killer. However, the Penguins were more determined to spread their ice age on the blue line than the Canadiens, who relied on their top two pairings of Ben Chiarot and Shea Weber, as well as Jeff Petry and Brett Kulak, and relied on them to lifting the hard to do.
5. The conditions
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Montreal Canadiens striker Artturi Lehkonen celebrates his goal as Penguins goaltender Tristan Jarry, defender Kris Letang (center) and forward Zach Aston-Reese react in the third period of Game 4 in their qualifying match at the Toronto’s Scotiabanka Bank Arena on Friday.
None of this was ideal for everyone involved. Each team had to make a hard restart from a long stasis and then be locked up in a luxury hotel to play hockey on bad ice.
The Penguins tried to adapt to the environment while the Canadiens were born in it.
Without the benefit of top-tier talent or even enough time to regain fitness, the Canadiens made the slippery ice rink in Toronto their domain. This series was not an overly entertaining affair, and that’s why the Canadiens made it that way.
The Penguins, on the other hand, tried to fight through the conditions and play their aggressive game, especially early in the series. But after claiming a two-goal lead to lose Game 3, 4-3, they reigned back in a safe, defensive position in Game 4 and attempted to defeat the Canadiens in their own starring game.
The goals were given too late in regulation, the Penguins flashed first, and their season, as uneventful as it was, was over before it really started again.
Seth Rorabaugh is a Tribune Review staff writer. You can contact Seth via email at [email protected] or via Twitter .
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Penguins / NHL | Sport
