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With a 56-game season, Mike Sullivan realizes the increased gravity with each competition Years 2020-21.
« Every game is naturally more important as there are fewer games to score points in the overall standings and to position oneself and establish oneself in the overall standings, » said the penguin trainer via video conference. « Every game is vital simply because there are fewer games and fewer opportunities to climb the overall standings. »
After their second game of the campaign, the penguins may want to invest in some carbines and crampons as they have already stumbled into a crack.
They allowed three goals in the first 11 minutes and 30 seconds of regulation and could not prevail 5-2 against the Flyers on Friday. The two teams had little detailed play but were full of action. The defeat made the Penguins a perfect 2-0-0 to open the season with 54 players remaining, all against East Division opponents.
The setback resulted in Penguin goalkeeper Tristan Jarry giving up three goals. That was an improvement over the half-dozen he scored in Wednesday’s 3-6 loss in Philadelphia. On the other hand, it was pulled after just six shots on Friday.
In two games, Jarry has 22 saves from 31 shots, which translates into a save percentage of 0.710.
« As for Tristan’s start to the season, it’s difficult to give up that number of goals with not many shots or not many chances, » said Sullivan. « But in his defense, some of the odds were high quality. »
Sullivan’s defense of Jarry was far tougher than the defense before him on the ice.
The first two goals of Philadelphia, a power play result from striker Travis Konecny with 7:27 in the competition and a balanced record by Konecny only 2:59 later, each came directly into the blue color. They were Konecny’s first goals of the season.
« We have to protect our net front a little better and help our goalkeepers, » said Chad Ruhwedel, defender of the Penguins, who made his season debut. « Just try to keep (the opposition) away from that blue color. »
Sure enough, the Flyers couldn’t hit Jarry out of the fold. Instead, they hit from the left circle when defender Ivan Provorov tore a wrister past Jarry’s blocker for his first goal at 11:30 a.m. in the first half.
Sullivan had seen enough and pulled Jarry – possibly for humanitarian reasons – in favor of Casey DeSmith.
The Penguins seemed to be reacting to the change when they converted their first power play opportunity of the game just 1:29 later. Striker Sidney Crosby cleared a deflected pass to the right of the crease and lifted a backhand off the near post and over sprawling goalkeeper Carter Hart for this second of the season.
The penguins made it 3-2 just 32 seconds later. Striker Jared McCann stormed into the offensive zone of the right wing and lifted a wrister to the other side, which Hart hit the slot with his blocker. Striker Brandon Tanev watched the rebound and threw it into the net with a forehand shot for his second goal.
After that, the penguins seemed to control the game for the balance of a competition filled with special teams, as 12 separate power play opportunities were distributed by officials.
« We had a lot of chances, » said striker Bryan Rust. “We had numerous opportunities there. We had a lot of chances to tie the game and score some goals. We just couldn’t. Hopefully we can learn from this and just use more pucks. »
After a goalless second period, Konecny finished his first career hat trick at 12:53 in the third period with a distraction from his left skate against DeSmith, who ended up with 12 saves and 13 shots.
An empty nice from striker Oskar Lindblom, his second goal of the season, scored the third goal with 17:52 and secured the Flyers a victory and the Penguins and Jarry a winless start to the season.
Seth Rorabaugh is a contributor to Tribune Review. You can contact Seth by email at [email protected] or on Twitter.
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