Injured rookie defenseman, Devils shut out Penguins, 3-0

Pittsburgh Penguins played one of his best first periods of the season on Saturday against New Jersey Devils.

Unfortunately, they did everything except put the puck in the back of the net.

The Devils then beat the Penguins 3-0 in a closely contested game until midway through the second period. From there, the Devils took over with their speed, forecheck and aggressive defensive attack.

Stefan Noesen scored his 15th of the season less than three minutes from time on a nice pass from Nico Hischier and following a defensive breakdown by Ryan Shea and Rickard Rakell in front of Tristan Jarry.

Hischier added a goal of his own in the first half of the third period – by which point the Devils had almost completely taken control of the game – and Timo Meier scored into an empty net in the final two minutes to seal the defeat Penguins.

In their last 10 games against the Devils, the Penguins are 2-8 and have been outscored 40-21. But it’s not like they played poorly for most of the game, especially against one of the top three teams in the league.

“Seven of their last eight games they’ve allowed less than 20 shots,” Penguins head coach Mike Sullivan said. “So now it’s eight of their last nine games that they’ve allowed less than 20 shots. They defend hard, they’re quick, they had the puck… For two and a half periods, I thought we competed hard and we were there.”

Sullivan also credited Devils goaltender Jacob Markstrom, who stopped only 12 Penguins shots he faced, but made two key saves in the second period to prevent Pittsburgh from opening the scoring – one of them them being a ridiculous stop on Sidney Crosby.

Here are some other notes and observations from Saturday’s loss to the Devils:

– Rookie defenseman Owen Pickering — who played the top pair of minutes alongside Kris Letang for most of the last two weeks — did not return for the third period due to what was later ruled an upper-body injury.

Thus, the Penguins were forced to play the third period with five defensemen, and actually four for one game, as Matt Grzelcyk I left for a few minutes but came back.

I think it was obvious in the second half of the period that the Penguins defensemen were a little exhausted since there were only two pairs. Unfortunately, there wasn’t much they could do about it.

It would be very unfortunate for Pickering if this prevented him from entering, so it is probably good that the holidays are approaching. He played a very strong game for the Penguins until he left.

If he’s out longer term, however, the Penguins may need to take even more steps to shore up defensive depth, with Marcus Pettersson already out for two to three more weeks.

– On this point, it’s a good thing Kyle Dubas was traded for another left defenseman at PO Josephwho played his first game with the Penguins this season.

After Pickering did not return to the ice in the third period, he played in the top pairing alongside Kris Letang. And his coach was impressed by the play he made.

“I thought he played really well,” Sullivan said. “He’s mobile. This is one of the fastest teams in the league, but he’s mobile, he gets back to pucks, he’s balanced with the puck, I thought he defended well with his stick. .. I think he had a good match.”

– Another Penguin who had a good match was Evgeni Malkin. He had an early breakaway that he lost control over – the ice was very bad all night, as the same thing happened to Jack Hughes later – and he had his signature “gallop” for most of the evening.

Unfortunately, the Penguins just couldn’t put anything together offensively. But he was very good for Pittsburgh tonight.

– Along the same lines, Sullivan put his lines in a blender during the third period, with the exception of the first line of Crosby, Bryan Rust and Rickard Rakell – who was dominant – and the fourth trio of Noel Acciari, Blake Lizotte and Matt Nieto.

Cody Glass and Michael Bunting started the game with Malkin, but finished it on the third line with Philip Tomasino, while Drew O’Connor and Anthony Beauvillier played the third period with Malkin instead.

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: The Penguins’ bottom-six rankings have been much worse since Lizotte was moved from the third-line center position.

I just don’t understand why this hasn’t been tried again since the loss to the New York Rangers. It worked. The line of Bunting, Lizotte and Beauvillier was absolutely buzzing and serving as an energy line for Pittsburgh.. They really had something there.

If Bunting doesn’t want to play with Malkin, it should be the Penguins’ third line, and I don’t think that should really be a big question. And I wouldn’t mind seeing Tomasino and Glass end up with Malkin for a few games, or even insert Jesse Puljujarvi to do so.

– It’s now 29 games without a goal for O’Connor.

This is becoming a serious problem. Sullivan mentioned that he was no longer focused on scoring for himself. So ask him to center the fourth line. Ask him to focus on defense.

Aside from this option and the press box, I’m not sure there’s much else they can do at this point.

– Tristan Jarry was very good in this match and made several key saves in key moments.

He stopped 26 of New Jersey’s 28 shots and continually made saves to keep the Penguins in the game. The Devils really lit the fire in the second half of the evening, and he barely flinched.

They need to continue to get this level of goaltending from him.

– While it would have been nice to win this one, this is probably the game the Penguins were most likely to drop out of five to close out the calendar year. They are now 8-3-1 in their last 12 games.

However, it should be noted that they are 1-6-1 against the Metropolitan Division this season. And – you’ll never guess it – three of their next four games will be against Metro.

They will face the Philadelphia Flyers on December 23 – their last game before the holidays – before a home-and-home matchup against the New York Islanders on December 28-29.

Even though they were going to end up losing a few games, these next few games are very important for the Penguins. Philadelphia is currently just one point behind Pittsburgh, while the Isles are two points behind.

This is the time of the season when scoreboard monitoring starts to become prevalent. The trade deadline – as well as the second half – will arrive quickly.

So the Penguins need to rack up as many points as possible against the teams they’re chasing and the teams chasing them.