Nearly at a loss for words, Kris Letang was concise in his assessment.
"It's just not good enough."
That was in reference to the Penguins' 7-2 loss to Connor McDavid and the Oilers here at PPG Paints Arena Thursday night.
Not good enough has been a common theme throughout various stretches of the season, including most recently, as the Penguins have now lost four in a row and five of their last six, dropping to ninth in the Eastern Conference by points percentage (.553).
Another recurring theme was present Thursday in the sense that they jumped out to an early lead, only to squander it in short order.
"I just think we got outplayed," Mike Sullivan said. "They played better than us. … I’m not sure we liked a whole lot about our game tonight."
Letang opened the scoring with his sixth goal of the season just a minute and five seconds into the game:
Each component of that goal — the forecheck, the situational awareness — was exactly what you'd hope to see early on. But everything went straight downhill from that point.
The Oilers seemed to possess the puck for the vast majority of the following 12 minutes of game action before McDavid knotted the score at 1 with a nasty power-play tally from the goal line on Tristan Jarry. I broke it down in a Freeze Frame.
Four minutes later, Leon Draisaitl cashed in on a juicy rebound for a power-play tally of his own to give the Oilers a 2-1 lead heading into intermission:
I don't even know what to call that coverage/pressure from Jeff Carter. Regardless, Jarry clearly hasn't captured his game yet since returning from an upper-body injury that had him out for nearly a month.
"I think he’s working his way back," Sullivan said of Jarry. "This was a tough one for all of us. And we knew the circumstance that Tristan is in. It’s not a perfect scenario. In a perfect world, he’d get lots of reps in practice. But the reality is, we don’t have the luxury of time right now. He’s trying to work his way into his top version of himself through a combination of practice, and some of it is simply gonna have to be through the games."
Jarry was later yanked from the crease after allowing six goals on 29 shots.
Shot attempts were 25-8 in favor of the Oilers after the first period. Shots on goal were 14-3, and one the Penguins' three shots was a dump from the neutral zone that was stopped and steered aside with ease by Stuart Skinner.
The second period featured a plus-six advantage in shots for the Oilers and a mammoth plus-four advantage in goals, boosting them to a 6-1 lead by the second intermission.
Kailer Yamamoto scored six minutes into the period, then two minutes later it was Warren Foegele capitalizing on a brutal Drew O'Connor offensive-zone turnover and even worse transition defense from Brian Dumoulin:
Calls for the dismissal of the general manager ensued from the crowd, and what little life the Penguins had up until Shore's goal vanished completely. They knew they were living the same old story.
"We’re not playing the way we’re supposed to play," Letang said. "We get discouraged pretty quick. It’s something we shouldn’t have in this dressing room. It starts with the main guys, like me, Sid and Geno. We have to step up our game and find a way to win."
Ryan Nugent-Hopkins' late second-period goal was every bit of proof needed that the home team had checked out:
After it was all said and done, the Oilers generated 4.37 expected goals, per Evolving-Hockey. It marked the third game in a row in which the Penguins allowed 4+ expected goals against, and the 11th time over their last 16 games. That's almost impressive ... in the worst possible way.
The Penguins finished the 2021-22 season as one of the better defensive teams in the league, but their ability to limit quantity and quality against has completely flipped on its head this season.
"It’s the little details," Letang responded when asked why that might be. "We should not look to win the game by a big score, we should just win by playing a simple game. Defend hard, and we have so much skill up front that we’ll find a way to score goals."
To add insult to injury, McDavid added his second of the night in the third period by making a mess of Casey DeSmith on a penalty shot attempt:
It was the only goal he allowed on 15 shots against in relief of Jarry.
Letang then picked up his second of the night in garbage time, somewhat fittingly assisted by Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin, but it was obviously far too little, far too late.
"The reality is, the solutions are inside the room," Sullivan said. "We’ve got to rely on one another, we’ve got to stick together. I think it always starts with an attitude and a certain resilience to our group. And that’s how we have to look at it."
