LAS VEGAS -- While Manny Pacquiao and Adrien Broner tangled about a mile down the Vegas Strip, there was another heavyweight battle being waged Saturday night inside a raucous T-Mobile Arena.
Before 18,511, the second-largest crowd to witness a regular-season game in Nevada, Penguins vs. Golden Knights certainly didn't lack for compelling storylines, contrasting styles, drama or entertainment.
Though they were certainly game, the Penguins -- playing for the second time in as many nights and in the fifth and final game of their 12-day road trip -- certainly looked worse for wear by the final bell. Judges at ringside scored this one 7-3, all in favor of the winners, and still Western Conference champion, Vegas Golden Knights.
A year ago, the Knights shocked the world by becoming the first expansion team in North American major professional sports history to reach a championship round. They did so largely in part with their speed. With four days off since their last game, the Knights skated circles around their spaghetti-legged opponents over the final 30 minutes on Saturday.
What had been a 3-3 game midway through the second period — after Sidney Crosby's goal on a gorgeous Jake Guentzel feed overcame a two-goal deficit — quickly became a rout with the Knights scoring four unanswered goals. The seven goals allowed was a season-worst for the Penguins, as was the four-goal margin of defeat.
Was fatigue a factor?
"No," Kris Letang said flatly.
Then why did the Penguins suffer their worst loss of the season?
"It was a combination of things," Mike Sullivan said. "But we just didn't play the game very smart. The decisions we made when we pinched, we didn't have support for the reload. We didn't stay above people on the attack. We were cheating in the offensive zone and you can't play that way against a good team like Vegas."
Obviously, odd-man breaks and defensive lapses cost the Penguins on Saturday. But, in the bigger picture, the problem for the Penguins has been consistency, not just from week to week, but game to game. As they did two nights earlier in Arizona, the Penguins produced a strong second period but again couldn't sustain it.
"We've got to find some consistency," Crosby was telling me late Saturday night. "There's no easy game and everything's tight right now. We've got to find some consistency with our game. The team that we were in the second period is the team that plays a full 60 or more. If we do that, we give ourselves a chance."
The Penguins concluded their road trip, which leads into their bye-week followed by the All-Star break, by going a disappointing 2-3.
But even that is somewhat misleading.
One win came only after they overcame a three-goal deficit to the thoroughly dreadful Ducks. The other came Friday night in Arizona when they needed a power-play goal in the final minute of overtime to beat the Coyotes. Against the Sharks and Knights, two legit Cup contenders, the Penguins were outscored by a combined score of 12-5. So much for rising up to the competition, eh?
If we're being honest, the Penguins probably aren't as good as their 11-3 December would suggest. Nor are they as bad as their last four losses, in which they've given up 22 goals. They now find themselves at 26-16-6 and are fairly safe in the final wildcard spot. They are still just two points out of first place in the Metropolitan Division. But they are also in need of some serious soul-searching before they reconvene on Jan. 27. The following night they will host the New Jersey Devils at PPG Paints Arena to begin a busy stretch run.
"We have to put it in our brain until the end of the year that it's going to be a tough fight to get in the playoffs," Letang said. "We better start playing with that same edge."
In the corridor outside the visitors locker room at T-Mobile Arena, I asked Sullivan for his assessment of his team and he did not hold back:
"We have to find a way to become a team that has a clear identity of what it is and how we're going to play and then everybody has to buy into it. Everyone, to a man, has to buy into it," he said. "We have to be harder to play against. We have to make better decisions with the puck. We have got to make sure that we play a brand of hockey that's playoff-ready, that gives us a chance to win night in and night out. I think to this particular juncture in the season, we've done it at times, but not nearly consistently enough to be the team that we're capable of becoming."
THE ESSENTIALS
• Boxscore
THREE STARS
My curtain calls go to …
1. Jonathan Marchessault
Golden Knights center
Recorded his second career hat trick, the third in Vegas history
2. Marc-Andre Fleury
Golden Knights goaltender
The Flower was up to his old tricks, turning aside 34 of 37, including a couple of 10-bell saves
3. William Karlsson
Golden Knights
A goal and an assist for the speedy sniper
THE INJURIES
• Patric Hornqvist, right winger, returned after missing four games to his latest concussion. He logged 16:59 of ice time, registered five shots and took his usual spot on the first-team power play. "It's good to be back," Hornqvist said. "I didn't play my best, but that's a really good team."
• Justin Schultz, defenseman, has been out since suffering a fractured leg on Oct. 13. He has been skating on his own and appears close to joining a full team practice
• Zach Aston-Reese, right winger, is out indefinitely with a broken left hand
THE GOOD
Though he gave up a career-high six goals on 34 shots, Casey DeSmith wasn't nearly as bad as those numbers would indicate. In fact, he gets an attaboy in this corner. If not for DeSmith stopping four clear breakaways, the Knights would have easily ended up in double-digits. Seriously.
Here's DeSmith's greatest hits package Saturday:
True, he has given up four-plus goals in his last three starts, including the past two after signing his three-year contract extension, but the Penguins' problems begin and end with their defensemen, not the goaltenders. See below.
THE BAD
Don't believe fatigue was a factor?
Look at Marchessault's first goal at 12:26 of the second that broke a 3-3 tie:
That was the only goal that DeSmith allowed that he could be considered at fault for after he unwisely played the puck. But the only reason he had to come out of his crease was because Jack Johnson was about to get beaten by Karlsson in a foot race for a loose puck.
It was a particularly tough night for the third pair. Johnson and D-partner Marcus Pettersson, who had been outstanding, have been slipping lately. On Saturday, they had a Corsi For percentage of 26.67 and were on the ice for 11 shots against and six for. Johnson was a team-worst minus-4, while Pettersson was minus-3.
The Penguins' other big minus was Evgeni Malkin, who went minus-3. On Marchessault's second goal at 16:16 of the second, he got caught watching as the Knights' center made a nice backhand-to-forehand move to beat DeSmith. Malkin failed to pick up his man, then failed to get so much as a stick on puck:
THE PLAY
After Crosby evened the score at 3-3 early in the second period, Malkin appeared to have put the Penguins ahead to end a personal three-game goal-less drought at 10:17.
With the Penguins on the power play, Hornqvist deflected Letang's point shot that Fleury initially stopped. Hornqvist then pushed his rebound on net. And it would have gone in, too, had it not hit the skate of Malkin, who was skating through the crease. Malkin tried to kick the puck to his stick but he only ended up kicking it across the goal line before he could get his stick on it:
After the goal was reviewed it was determined, correctly, to be no goal.
Not three minutes later, Marchessault scored his first of the game to put the Knights ahead 4-3. That two-goal swing completely turned the tide of the game.
"That's a different story if we're up 4-3," said Hornqvist, who returned to the lineup after a four-game absence with a concussion. "I don't know how many minutes, maybe 3-4 minutes after that they score, 4-3. And then, couple minutes after that, it's 5-3. It's hard to come back from two goals down. But we fought hard. We just need to be a little smarter and play a little more for each other."
THE CALL
At the start of the second period, Dominik Simon lined up as the right winger on Crosby's line with Guentzel on the left. Sullivan's attempt to spark his team paid immediate dividends when Simon scored just 16 seconds into the period to pull the Penguins within a goal at 3-2.
Simon's seventh goal was the result of a pretty passing play from Brian Dumoulin and Guentzel:
By promoting Simon, Bryan Rust was pushed down to the third line with Derick Brassard and Tanner Pearson.
Rust had been a catalyst to the Penguins' turnaround but has cooled down offensively of late. He has just two goals and two assists in his last 11 games. Still, Rust was able to use his speed to draw a holding penalty on Karlsson midway through the second period.
With the Penguins not practicing for another eight days, Sullivan will have plenty of time to re-think his lines and his pairs with Schultz a strong possibility to return following the break.
THE OTHER SIDE
When he played for the Penguins, Fleury usually had his teammates in stitches. On Saturday, he had Phil Kessel slamming his stick down in a tirade on the bench after his sprawling stop in the second period to keep the score tied at 3-3.
The Penguins certainly had other chances, notably a 16-11 edge in high-danger chances, but they couldn't solve Fleury, who earned his NHL-best 27th win.
“Tonight was definitely special,” Marchessault said. “When we play Pittsburgh, it’s always special for us because it’s our best player on the team playing against his old team, so we definitely want to show off for him. He was big for us. He stopped a lot of grade-A chances, and we were able to back him up.”
With a large Pittsburgh contingent on hand at T-Mobile Arena, it felt like old times for Fleury.
“It’s more fun,” he said. “You feel you’re more engaged and you’re doing more for the team, it feels like. It’s just fun. I like playing, I like making saves. It was good. When you win at the end, it’s always fun.”
The only blemish on Fleury's game was allowing Crosby's tying goal in the second. It was the first that the captain has scored against his former teammate. Crosby had gone without a shot on goal in two of his previous three games against Vegas.
“We’ve had so many battles together, so he finally got his goal, I guess,” Fleury said.
THE SCHEDULE
While Crosby and Letang are off to San Jose next weekend for All-Star Weekend, the Penguins will not return to the ice until next Sunday, when they will practice at 4 p.m. at the Lemieux Sports Complex. They will host the Devils the following night at PPG Paints Arena.
THE COVERAGE
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