VANCOUVER, British Columbia -- If there was any consolation in the first two losses of the Penguins' western Canada road trip, it's knowing that they lost to two legitimate Stanley Cup contenders in the Oilers and Flames.
The Canucks -- winless this season until a narrow win over the Kraken on Thursday and without some of their top players in Brock Boeser and Quinn Hughes among others, and starting a backup goaltender who had played just 10 NHL games in eight seasons -- are closer to contending for the No. 1 pick Connor Bedard at this point than the Stanley Cup.
After practice on Thursday Penguins players preached the importance of "matching the energy" of the desperate, depleted Canucks, and finally putting together a complete 60-minute effort for the first time on this road trip.
That effort once again fell short, and the Penguins dropped their third consecutive game with a 5-1 loss to the lowly Canucks.
"I just don't think we're putting a 60-minute effort together," Mike Sullivan said after Friday's loss. "It's hard to win in this league when you don't."
The Penguins knew the importance of a strong start in this game.
"It's a team that's going to come out hard," Bryan Rust told me of the Canucks on Thursday.
"They're probably frustrated, and they're gonna turn it into energy," Ryan Poehling predicted. "We just have to match that early on. I think we've played good periods and you see flashes of that, but we need to play a complete game. So I think if we can start early on and keep that momentum going and get the doubt in their heads earlier, that'll help us."
Much like the Penguins' loss in Calgary, the first period was by far their worst, and it dug them into a hole they couldn't come out of. The Canucks led just 1-0 after the first 20 minutes off of a Tanner Pearson goal, but what the scoresheet didn't show is that they had all of the momentum. They outshot the Penguins 10-5, out-attempted them 19-11, led in scoring chances by a 13-4 margin, and controlled 71.3 percent of the expected goals for, a metric that reflects the quality of the attempts the Canucks were getting.
The Penguins were the better team in the second period, though they came out of that frame still trailing by a goal after the Canucks got a goal from Bo Horvat and Rickard Rakell got one back for the Penguins in the second, with both goal coming on the power play. The Penguins had a higher quantity of shots and shot attempts in the third, but the Canucks by far had more quality scoring opportunities, and they were able to capitalize with three more goals, including an empty-netter to seal the win.
I asked Sullivan what his message was to the team after a game like this, and his answer was a simple, "It's not good enough."
It wasn't the 60-minute effort the Penguins needed. It might not have even been a 40-minute effort.
"We've got to be better," Sidney Crosby said afterward. "We've had good periods, bad periods, but we haven't put a full game together. So you've got to find a way to do that."
Having a good first period and building momentum from the start is a big part of that. It's not like the team isn't aware of that. I asked Crosby what actually needs to happen in order to execute that and have a better start for the Penguins' next game.
"It's hard to say," he said. "You know, we had a pretty good start in Edmonton. Calgary not so much, and here not so much. We've just got to be more determined and understand that it's something we've got to focus on and find a way to be better."
Rickard Rakell said that having a strong start is just a matter of a mindset entering the game. Crosby said that he thinks the Penguins have lacked "urgency" at times. Evgeni Malkin agreed with Crosby's assessment that urgency has been lacking, but said that it was "hard to say what the problem is right now."
"We need to play harder for sure," Malkin said. "Every team is so good right now, it's the NHL. It's better every year. We just need to play right. Win faceoffs, don't take penalties, win every shift. We know how we play."
It's a quick turnaround for the Penguins, with this western swing ending in Seattle on Saturday with a game at 10 p.m. Eastern. Rakell said that it's "probably a good thing that we have a game tomorrow again," and that the Penguins have the opportunity to "stop the bleeding, figure it out" so soon.
Malkin had the same choice of words to describe the importance of the final game of this road trip.
"Hopefully we break the bad luck tomorrow and stop the bleeding," Malkin said. "It's nothing strategy, we just need everyone's heads up, support each other and keep going."
MORE FROM THE GAME
• Rakell was the Penguins' best player in this game even beyond the goal. The goal was just the reward for the effort he had been putting forth to that point. He led the Penguins with 10 shot attempts, four high-danger shot attempts, and eight shots on goal. His goal came on a second-period power play when he knocked in a rebound from a Bryan Rust shot:
• We started to see the defense pairings get shaken up later in the second period. There was a lot of rotating, with every left-handed shot getting a turn with every right-handed shot at some point. Two of the more common pairings we saw were P.O Joseph with Kris Letang on the top pairing and Brian Dumoulin with Jan Rutta on the third pairing. It'll be interesting to see if pairings get shaken up for Saturday's game to start.
• Tristan Jarry wasn't great. He had 24 saves on 28 shots, and at least a couple of those goals were ones he really should have had, like this Horvat goal to put the Canucks up 2-0:
• The Canucks' third goal was scored by Andrei Kuzmenko after a brutal Danton Heinen turnover:
• The Penguins didn't exactly give Jarry any help. The Canucks were getting chances from the high-danger areas of the ice all game, and it's no surprise that they found success that way too:
• The Penguins went 1-for-4 on the power play. They did record seven shots on goal and none against on the power play, which is at least an improvement over other games on this road trip.
• The Penguins went 2-for-4 on the penalty kill, plus a goal that came immediately after a Joseph minor ended. They only allowed six shots on goal over those four power play attempts. They didn't record any shorthanded shots for, though Poehling nearly had a shorthanded wraparound earlier in the game.
• The Canucks' win in Seattle on Thursday was the 600th win of Bruce Boudreau's career. He was recognized for it during the first stoppage in the game and there were "Bruce, there it is!" chants throughout the game.
• The Canucks have the worst pre-game hype video that I've ever seen. It was just bizarre. It felt like it went on for 10 minutes and there were different stages to it, each one less exciting than the last. One of them was just pictures of what felt like endless former Canucks fading in and out to sounds of rain falling.
• Jim Rutherford was outside the Penguins locker room after the game with his son James, catching up with members of the Penguins' staff.
• Obligatory press box snack update: Offerings were pretty lackluster in the first two periods with just popcorn, fruit and mini-cupcakes, then the Canucks rallied for the third period with some of the best chocolate chip cookies I've ever had and full-sized candy bars. I appreciated the candy bars, even if they did taste/feel like Whoppers candy in bar form:
TAYLOR HAASE / DKPS
THE ESSENTIALS
• Boxscore
• Live file
• Scoreboard
• Standings
• Statistics
THE HIGHLIGHTS
THE THREE STARS
As selected at Rogers Arena:
1. Bo Horvat, Canucks C
2. Spencer Martin, Canucks G
3. Andrei Kuzmenko, Canucks LW
THE INJURIES
• Forward Teddy Blueger has resumed practicing with the team as he recovers from an upper-body injury. He's day-to-day, but he was placed on long-term injured reserve retroactive to Oct. 11. The earliest he can return is Nov. 5 against the Kraken.
• Forward Jake Guentzel is recovering from an upper-body injury after taking a Letang shot to the ear against the Kings last Thursday. He has been cleared for contact and said Friday morning that he wasn't sure if he would play against Seattle on Saturday.
• Forward Jason Zucker missed his second game in a row after taking a cross-check to the side/back area during the third period in Monday's game in Edmonton. Zucker is "day-to-day" and skated with the team non-contact in Friday's morning skate.
THE LINEUPS
Sullivan’s lines and pairings:
Rickard Rakell - Sidney Crosby - Bryan Rust
Danton Heinen - Evgeni Malkin - Jeff Carter
Brock McGinn - Sam Poulin - Kasperi Kapanen
Drake Caggiula - Ryan Poehling - Josh Archibald
Brian Dumoulin - Kris Letang
Marcus Pettersson - Jeff Petry
P.O Joseph - Jan Rutta
And for Boudreau's Canucks
Conor Garland - Bo Horvat - J.T. Miller
Andrewi Kuzmenko - Elias Pettersson - Ilya Mikheyev
Tanner Pearson - Sheldon Dries - Nils Hoglander
Vasily Podkolzin - Nils Aman - Dakota Joshua
Oliver Ekman-Larsson - Tyler Myers
Guillaume Brisebois - Luke Schenn
Jack Rathbone - Kyle Burroughs
THE SCHEDULE
The Penguins' western road trip mercifully wraps up on Saturday in Seattle with a game against the Kraken at 10 p.m. Eastern. They'll fly home on Sunday and be back to practicing at home on Monday afternoon.
THE CONTENT
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