The Carolina Hurricanes found a better effort, but could not find a better result than their last few games Tuesday night. The Canes fell 3-1 to the Pittsburgh Penguins at PNC Arena for their fifth straight loss, dealing another blow to the team’s already-slim playoff hopes.
The Canes (24-24-8) controlled play for long stretches of the game, firing 30 shots on goal to Pittsburgh’s (37-14-8) 22, but simply could not find the back of the net again. The team has not scored an even strength goal since the first period of last Friday’s game against the Colorado Avalanche.
“The effort was good,” head coach Bill Peters said. “We played hard. For the most part, we got contributions throughout the lineup. I thought guys played hard.”
The Penguins struck first less than three minutes in; forward Scott Wilson parked himself in front of the net and tipped a feed from forward Patric Hornqvist past Canes starter Cam Ward for a 1-0 lead.
The Canes tied it up a few minutes later with a long-awaited power-play goal. Forward Jeff Skinner took a pass from forward Lee Stempniak between the faceoff circles and roofed a shot over Murray for his 20th goal of the season to tie it at one just before the man advantage expired. The Canes finished the game 1 for 5 with the man advantage and would still like to see more production up a man. The opportunity that led to Skinner’s goal may have given the team a model for how to do so.
“That was a good job by Phil [Di Giuseppe] and Stemper [Lee Stempniak] for the most part, Rasky [Victor Rask] too, of hunting down pucks and for retrieving rebounds that missed the net. That’s what we need. A couple ones later on, we kind of struggled getting in and establishing that. That one, for sure, that’s the level of work we need to have on a consistent basis to be successful.”
Penguins rookie goalie Matt Murray made the save of the game late in the second, reaching out with his glove from a prone position to rob a point-blank bid from Canes forward Victor Rask and keep it tied at one.
The Penguins took a 2-1 lead with just under four minutes to go in the second. Kessel fired a wrister from the high slot that forward Sidney Crosby tipped in. The goal came after a slashing call against Canes forward Viktor Stalberg gave the Penguins a lengthy 5-on-3 power play, and after the Canes had dominated most of the game’s first 40 minutes, they suddenly found themselves trailing.
“When you have the opportunity to get a lead on a team like this, you need to do it,” defenseman Ron Hainsey said. “If you don’t, you see what happens. They get a 5-on-3 and they capitalize, and then you’re chasing it from there.”
The Penguins weathered more pressure from the Hurricanes and pushed their lead to two goals a little more than halfway through the third. Penguins forward Carl Hagelin fed Malkin, who was left wide open in front of the net from behind the goal line, and the Russian forward made no mistake for a 3-1 lead.
“We’ve got to manage the puck better,” Peters said. A lot of the stuff that ends up in our net is after we’ve had it. I don’t think we needed to be two men short. I don’t think we needed to have a d-zone faceoff [on the second] goal. We iced it, they come over the top with the Malkin line and it’s in the net. That’s part of puck management.”
The Canes will continue their five-game homestand, in which they have an 0-2-1 record thus far against the Ottawa Senators on Friday night. With the team struggling to bury its chances and find ways to score, Carolina will have to put that frustration aside if it hopes to find a win.
“You stay with it,” Skinner said. “It’s our job to stay with it. That’s the way it goes; you go through ups and downs throughout the season. You go through stretches where everything seems to be bouncing your way, and then you go through stretches where it’s the opposite. We’ll keep staying with it, keep trying to generate chances like that and things will hopefully pay off for us in the end.”
