The Hurricanes' Sebastian Aho tries a backhander against John Marino and Tristan Jarry Saturday at PPG Paints Arena. - GETTY

Penguins

Blueger: It's about 'attitude, work ethic, will to win'

By Dave Molinari

Mar 9, 2020 • 12:07 am

17.3K

The Penguins still are the team that performed so remarkably for the first two-thirds of the 2019-20 season, that refused to fold under extreme adversity and actually seemed to be fueled by it.

Nothing ever can take that away.

But they also are the team that has lost eight of its past 10 games and, much of the time, has looked pretty wretched while doing it.

To say nothing of being the team that, in the wake of a 6-2 loss to the Hurricanes at PPG Paints Arena Sunday, is as close to ninth place in the Eastern Conference standings -- which is the first slot outside the playoff field -- as it is to first place in the Metropolitan Division.

The latter of which, coincidentally or otherwise, is where they were sitting when this flameout began last month.

"We're obviously not thrilled with the position we're in over the last few weeks," Mike Sullivan said. "We all have to take ownership for it. And now we have to take responsibility to pull ourselves out of it."

Adopting the proper mindset is critical to that, he said, and his players didn't disagree.

"We can say we're not getting the bounces, but it's our own fault that things are going like that," Teddy Blueger said. "The things that are in our control, we're not doing a good enough job of to put ourselves in a position to win. I don't think it's really Xs-and-Os. I think it's more attitude and work ethic and will to win than anything."

That could be construed as quite an indictment of the Penguins' intangibles, and Blueger wasn't the only guy to make such a point.

"We know what we have to do," Justin Schultz said. "We just have to start competing harder."

The loss to Carolina was the bookend to a lost weekend that began with a 5-2 defeat to the Capitals the previous day, a pair of discouraging setbacks that included echoes of their 0-3 tour de farce through California during the final week of February.

There was bad decision-making and sloppy execution, letdowns and breakdowns and mental lapses all over the ice. And several of them ended up being recorded on the scoreboard against Carolina.

"It's a game of mistakes," Sidney Crosby said. "It's always like that. ... We made a few more than they did, and that was the difference in the game."

Unlike the Washington game, when the Penguins spotted Washington a 3-0 lead during the opening period, they got a reasonably good start against Carolina and held a 2-1 advantage at the first intermission.

But the game got away from the Penguins during the 20 minutes that followed, as Hurricanes defensemen Jaccob Slavin and Jake Gardiner beat Tristan Jarry in a span of less than five minutes to put Carolina in front to stay:

"We got a bit complacent in the second," Jason Zucker said. "We just didn't play our game. We weren't pressuring pucks. We weren't hard enough. We didn't play hard enough."

That kind of critique almost never was heard in the Penguins' locker room until the past few weeks. For the majority of this season, their compete level was higher than their talent level, but they managed to translate commitment and focus and and discipline directly into points.

And to make opponents feel as if they had just spent 60 minutes battling with a wolverine who was nursing a toothache.

"We were one of the hardest teams to play against earlier in the year," Schultz said. "For whatever reason, we got away from it."

That change is reflected in their defensive record during the past 10 games, when they have allowed an average of four goals. That's far worse than Detroit's goals-against average, the NHL's most bloated over the course of this season.

Then again, generating offense has been an issue of late, too. The Penguins have scored as many as three goals in just three of their past 10 games.

Patrick Marleau opened the scoring against Carolina with his first goal in seven games since joining the Penguins -- it also was his first in 18 games overall, the longest drought of his career -- but he's white-hot compared to some teammates who are counted on to show up on the scoresheet every now and then:

Schultz has gone 26 games without a goal. Jared McCann doesn't have any in 21. Brandon Tanev is goalless in 15. Blueger has one in 14. Conor Sheary has one in seven despite playing on the No. 1 line since being acquired from Buffalo at the trade deadline two weeks ago. Kris Letang has not scored in 11 games, and has just one point in the past seven. Dominik Simon, now sidelined by an unspecified upper-body injury, failed to get a goal in the final 12 games before he was hurt.

Only a few of those guys get regular time on the power play, but that unit isn't exactly mass-producing points these days, either.

The Penguins were 1 for 7 on the power play Sunday, with Evgeni Malkin scoring as a two-man advantage that lasted 22 seconds was about to expire:

While that was a novelty -- the Penguins are just 3 for 7 in five-on-threes this season -- it also was the only time the Penguins got something out of having an extra man (or men) against the Hurricanes.

Their power play continues to be infinitely more imposing on paper than it is on ice and, following the game, ranked 16th in the NHL, with a conversion rate of 20.3 percent. And while they actually have a man-advantage goal in each of the past four games, it rarely seems to come through when the Penguins need it most.

"It's probably a microcosm of our overall game," Sullivan said. "We're just a little bit disconnected. We're not executing. We're not anticipating. A lot of it is the play away from the puck. The puck support, and coming to the puck and providing options for the puck carrier. When our power play is at its best, you see that instinctive play on display. These guys anticipate. They get to spots. They're always one step ahead of the penalty-killers. Right now, we're not."

That probably will have to change -- and soon -- if the Penguins hope to make securing a playoff berth an inevitability, rather than a source of great suspense as the regular season winds down.

"Every game now is huge," Schultz said. "Our division is so tight that we need to come and compete every night. We have to start picking it up here."

And doing it soon. Like, when they face the Devils at Prudential Center -- hardly a hospitable venue for them over the years -- Tuesday evening. Not that New Jersey necessarily will pose the greatest challenge to the Penguins' chances of winning that game.

"The answers are inside our dressing room," Sullivan said. "We just have to make sure we bring the right attitude to the rink, so that we can work ourselves out of this. We have to rely on one another. We have to trust one another. But it comes down to a certain attitude, a level of enthusiasm. We have to make sure that we respond the right way to the adversity."

The way they usually did until the past few weeks.