Kapanen's Struggles Hinder Pens in 3-2 Loss to Hurricanes

Recap by Penguins Feature Contributor Patricia Beninato

I like Kasperi Kapanen. I’ve written about him enough so that my spellchecker automatically corrects his name when I spell it wrong, which I do frequently. He can be counted on for good sound bites. His GetGo commercial is hilarious (“OOOOH! AND TOTS ON IT!”). I’ve been waiting to use the GetGo quote during my live tweets when he scores.

I’ve been waiting for a while.

Between his lack of points and his mistakes that went a long way toward the Penguins’ eventual 3-2 loss to the Hurricanes at PNC Arena, I hope someone gets the GetGo commercial up on YouTube, if it’s not there already, because I’m getting the feeling that Kap’s days as a Pen are numbered.

First, though, there were some Penguins highlights. In fact, in the first period it looked like the Pens were going to steamroll the Canes like they did the Lightning in their last game. They came out fast and hard, buzzing around Antti Raanta like their bumblebee-colored selves. At 4:28, Marcus Petterson gave Jake Guentzel a gorgeous pass with the order to give us all our milkshakes early, and so Guentzy did. Petey, as AT&T dude Dan Potash calls him, gets off some remarkably pretty slides for someone that doesn’t score a lot, and for a guy that used to drive me crazy by hanging on to the puck when he first got with the Pens, he seems to have gotten out of that habit. The Pens got a power play opportunity three-quarters into the period, but it was one of those where I wished that power plays lasted another thirty seconds because it took some time to build momentum. Guentzel got off a beauty of a pass himself to Sidney Crosby literally four seconds after the PP ended and Sid, being Sid, sniped it in for a 2-0 lead at 13:53. Casey DeSmith, as he has in his past few appearances, was looking lights-out between the pipes, and Pens fans, of which there were many in the stands, were feeling good.

But these are the Hurricanes, a team that despite getting flummoxed by the Capitals in their last game can never be counted out. The momentum in the second period didn’t so much shift as stutter towards the Canes, because DeSmith was still making great saves. Kap, however, lost the puck to Nino Niederreiter during a behind-the-net cluster, and Niederreiter got it to Jordan Stahl, who took advantage of DeSmith being drawn off-center and scored a traitor goal at 4:20. 

Then came the third period. This time, Kap fumbled the puck to Ethan Bear, who is not on the Penguins. Bear got a long shot to Stahl again, and of course Stahl got Traitor Goal Number Two at 9:48 to tie things up. The Penguins’ frustration started showing, and it didn’t help that Vincent Trocheck, the Burgh native turned one of the few guys I really dislike on the Canes, started causing trouble. Mark Friedman, who never turns down a fight, got into it with Trocheck, which drew some blood. Then with a little more than two minutes left in regulation, the Pens got called for too much man--I literally yelled DON’T TOUCH THE PUCK at Evan Rodrigues like he could hear me from 500 miles away--which fortunately didn’t result in a score and brought on bonus hockey.

Remember Trocheck? Well, here he came again in OT, this time going after Kris Letang and punching him behind the goal. Tanger, who also never turns down a fight, punched back, which unfortunately was the punch the refs saw, and into the sin bin went Tanger, dropping f-bombs all the way. Tanger’s been in the NHL long enough to know that the time for retaliation isn’t in OT, so yes, he earned a bit of Twitabuse from me (and Mike Sullivan agreed with me in the presser). And that’s when luck totally went to the Canes. Andrei Svechnikov caught a rebound for the game-winner at 3:14 in OT, and it’s safe to say that DeSmith did not buy Tanger a postgame beer judging by the force with which he threw his stick after that goal. 

Despite the chirping going on elsewhere on the internet, Tanger is safe from trade considerations.

As the kids say, Kasperi Kapanen tho …