DK: Results shouldn't bury real progress being pushed
No one likes a loss.
And no one with whom I spoke among the Penguins, from coach to captain to rank and file, seemed satisfied in the slightest with their 4-2 loss to the Red Wings tonight here at Little Caesars Arena.
If anything ...
"We had chances. I had chances myself," a disconsolate Bryan Rust would tell me at his stall. "It's frustrating to think about."
It showed. And yet, there was more to this one. Meaningfully more.
Listen, I'm not about to copy and paste my extensive column from a couple days ago about how this team's finally doing almost everything right, about how the collective's finally formed a fair amount of accountability, about how style and personality of what everyone's trying to achieve finally feels like a fit for the roster as a whole.
But it's tempting. Because, if I'm being honest, aside from a semi-sluggish first few minutes, this entire event might as well have been a continuation of that 3-2 victory over the Islanders.
As I'd confirm with Mike Sullivan.
“Yeah, I thought we competed hard and our intentions were in the right place," he'd respond. "Give Detroit credit. They defended hard tonight. They played a good game, also. The difference in the game is a power-play goal. But we had some opportunities. There's a fine line between winning and losing in this league, and I thought we competed hard tonight.”
They did. And they stayed straight-ahead, they tracked back, they bunched bodies when and where needed, and even got all their offense courtesy of two old-school, smash-and-crash goals from Drew O'Connor, this after his 32-game goal drought.
Rust saw it the same way.
“Yeah, I think the first half of the first period, we probably weren’t that great and, then, the last 50 minutes, I thought we were really good. It was a good, hard-fought game on both sides. Unfortunately, we couldn’t get some of those net-front scrums to go in and a couple of those chances. They were able to capitalize on their special teams.”
Vladimir Tarasenko's 100-foot needle-point to spring Jonatan Berggren and Berggren's top-shelf finish on Alex Nedeljković were both pretty enough to not require further explanation, but Marcus Pettersson, one of the defensemen who got threaded, had something odd to add.
"There were four guys on the ice the line before them, and then they changed," he'd recall. "I was skating off the ice trying to count bodies, and I didn't see any of them change. I don't know if Berggren jumped on late, but it was kind of a bang-bang play. They got the puck, and I was caught already. It was a tough play to read."
Weird. And it impacted nothing. The Penguins kept pushing, kept playing the same, didn't allow another shot for the next 10 minutes and, really, took over for extended stretches. That hadn't been happening before this 10-5-1 surge.
"I thought it was a really good game," was how Sullivan worded it. "It was one of the more faster paced games that we’ve played in the last little while. That’s a fast team over there and the pace of that game was as quick as it’s been here that I can remember in some of our other games. We competed really hard.”
Patrick Kane whipped that wrister past Nedeljković for a power-play goal that came with an asterisk or two of its own, one being that Matt Nieto, whose only purpose in the lineup is to be part of what's been a prolific penalty-kill, took forever to slide back to his assigned side, and two being, as Nedeljkovic described, "The puck hopped up a little edge just before he shot," which is why Kane's shot can be seen dancing toward its destination.
All right. Stuff happens.
The Penguins were still at 2-2 midway through the third after O'Connor's second goal and an array of near-misses around Alex Lyon when they had a power play that generated next to nothing, whereas the Red Wings did this on their own power play with 5:34 left:
Not much to dissect here. Noel Acciari gets fooled off protecting his point, Erik Gustaffson blasts away, Pettersson can't come close to moving 6-6, 225-pound Michael Rasmussen from the net-front, and I asked Nedeljković to walk me through the rest:
"I looked the wrong way on that guy," he'd recall. "I thought I had a lane on Rasmussen's left, and obviously the puck went to my right. That's one of those ones where I felt I had a chance to find it, and it just wasn't the ride side to look at."
Yep. Easiest poke of J.T. Compher's career.
Pettersson, back in the lineup after missing six games to an upper-body injury, wasn't at his best, as he seemed to acknowedge.
"I was on the ice for all three, so other than that, pretty good," he'd reply when asked how he felt. "I've got to be better."
He was frustrated, too.
Better results are ahead. And I can't believe that's even crossing my mind after how this team stunk through two months, but the foundation's taken another for-real stride forward.
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THE ASYLUM
Dejan Kovacevic
7:10 am - 01.01.2025DetroitDK: Results shouldn't bury real progress being pushed
No one likes a loss.
And no one with whom I spoke among the Penguins, from coach to captain to rank and file, seemed satisfied in the slightest with their 4-2 loss to the Red Wings tonight here at Little Caesars Arena.
If anything ...
"We had chances. I had chances myself," a disconsolate Bryan Rust would tell me at his stall. "It's frustrating to think about."
It showed. And yet, there was more to this one. Meaningfully more.
Listen, I'm not about to copy and paste my extensive column from a couple days ago about how this team's finally doing almost everything right, about how the collective's finally formed a fair amount of accountability, about how style and personality of what everyone's trying to achieve finally feels like a fit for the roster as a whole.
But it's tempting. Because, if I'm being honest, aside from a semi-sluggish first few minutes, this entire event might as well have been a continuation of that 3-2 victory over the Islanders.
As I'd confirm with Mike Sullivan.
“Yeah, I thought we competed hard and our intentions were in the right place," he'd respond. "Give Detroit credit. They defended hard tonight. They played a good game, also. The difference in the game is a power-play goal. But we had some opportunities. There's a fine line between winning and losing in this league, and I thought we competed hard tonight.”
They did. And they stayed straight-ahead, they tracked back, they bunched bodies when and where needed, and even got all their offense courtesy of two old-school, smash-and-crash goals from Drew O'Connor, this after his 32-game goal drought.
Rust saw it the same way.
“Yeah, I think the first half of the first period, we probably weren’t that great and, then, the last 50 minutes, I thought we were really good. It was a good, hard-fought game on both sides. Unfortunately, we couldn’t get some of those net-front scrums to go in and a couple of those chances. They were able to capitalize on their special teams.”
That's it. That's the game.
Care to relive it, complete with background?
Well, whatever, I'm doing it anyway:
Vladimir Tarasenko's 100-foot needle-point to spring Jonatan Berggren and Berggren's top-shelf finish on Alex Nedeljković were both pretty enough to not require further explanation, but Marcus Pettersson, one of the defensemen who got threaded, had something odd to add.
"There were four guys on the ice the line before them, and then they changed," he'd recall. "I was skating off the ice trying to count bodies, and I didn't see any of them change. I don't know if Berggren jumped on late, but it was kind of a bang-bang play. They got the puck, and I was caught already. It was a tough play to read."
Weird. And it impacted nothing. The Penguins kept pushing, kept playing the same, didn't allow another shot for the next 10 minutes and, really, took over for extended stretches. That hadn't been happening before this 10-5-1 surge.
"I thought it was a really good game," was how Sullivan worded it. "It was one of the more faster paced games that we’ve played in the last little while. That’s a fast team over there and the pace of that game was as quick as it’s been here that I can remember in some of our other games. We competed really hard.”
Restarting the reliving:
Patrick Kane whipped that wrister past Nedeljković for a power-play goal that came with an asterisk or two of its own, one being that Matt Nieto, whose only purpose in the lineup is to be part of what's been a prolific penalty-kill, took forever to slide back to his assigned side, and two being, as Nedeljkovic described, "The puck hopped up a little edge just before he shot," which is why Kane's shot can be seen dancing toward its destination.
All right. Stuff happens.
The Penguins were still at 2-2 midway through the third after O'Connor's second goal and an array of near-misses around Alex Lyon when they had a power play that generated next to nothing, whereas the Red Wings did this on their own power play with 5:34 left:
Not much to dissect here. Noel Acciari gets fooled off protecting his point, Erik Gustaffson blasts away, Pettersson can't come close to moving 6-6, 225-pound Michael Rasmussen from the net-front, and I asked Nedeljković to walk me through the rest:
"I looked the wrong way on that guy," he'd recall. "I thought I had a lane on Rasmussen's left, and obviously the puck went to my right. That's one of those ones where I felt I had a chance to find it, and it just wasn't the ride side to look at."
Yep. Easiest poke of J.T. Compher's career.
Pettersson, back in the lineup after missing six games to an upper-body injury, wasn't at his best, as he seemed to acknowedge.
"I was on the ice for all three, so other than that, pretty good," he'd reply when asked how he felt. "I've got to be better."
He was frustrated, too.
Better results are ahead. And I can't believe that's even crossing my mind after how this team stunk through two months, but the foundation's taken another for-real stride forward.
Want to participate in our comments?
Want an ad-free experience?
Become a member, and enjoy premium benefits! Make your voice heard on the Steelers, Penguins and Pirates, and hear right back from tens of thousands of fellow Pittsburgh sports fans worldwide! Plus, access all our premium content, including Dejan Kovacevic columns, Friday Insider, daily Live Qs with the staff, more! And yeah, that's right, no ads at all!
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