Pens Blow Late Lead, Fall to Bruins 6-5 in OT

Story by Penguins Featured Contributor Patricia Beninato

I had to laugh when I was doing my daily Twitter troll this morning when one of the tweets I read was “It’s not too early to panic about the Penguins” in light of their lost-a-lead-lost-the-game-in-overtime performance against the Bruins. Yes, it was their first home loss this season, but come on, people, it’s early November. Just as with every other sports season, no one should get too excited if their favorite team is doing great or poorly early on. There’s plenty of time to improve/fall off the cliff.

Right now, the Bruins are really good (yes, even Rat Face Marchand). The Penguins were without Kris Letang (illness), and Teddy Blueger’s absence is wreaking havoc on the penalty kill. Blueger’s skating, but as of yet no word on when he’ll return. But, again, November literally just started. Everyone needs to chill out.

The game started very well for the Pens. Sidney Crosby struck thirty seconds into the game with an unassisted goal from one knee (because he is Sid). Charlie Coyle answered five minutes later, and Jakob Lauko put the Bruins ahead at 13:20 in the first.

But the Pens had an excellent second period. Evgeni Malkin was score at 1:47, Josh Archibald lit the lamp at 8:42, Bryan Rust chimed in at 11:16, and Rickard Rakell added to the Pens’ lead thirty seconds later, which got Bruins goalie Linus Ullmark yanked in favor of Jeremy Swayman. Patrice Bergeron seemed to have something against goalies in this game, and Mike Sullivan again displayed his genius at knowing when to challenge, and what looked like a Bergeron goal got disallowed when the replay showed him sliding into Tristan Jarry in the paint. But then Rat Face made up for it, and the second period ended 5-3 Penguins.

Ullman had to come back into the game in the third period when Bergeron fell into Swayman’s leg, bending it much farther back then a leg should go, and the break seemed to have done him good; he was visibly much sharper. Meanwhile, Pavel Zacha scored at 11:59, helped out by Hampus Lindholm, who had four points in this game, and Taylor Hall tied things up at 18:43, with Lindholm helping out again and sending things into overtime. Lindholm scored himself 3:37 into overtime, sealing the Penguins’ fate. No happy little Penguins on Twitter this time.

As I tweeted earlier in the week, this is the time when a team should suck. Get everyone healed up, get things together, and things will improve. Sure, it’s fun when a team starts out well, but it’s a long season. I still remember the 2015-16 season, when the Penguins were awful at the outset. But they hoisted the Cup at the end, didn’t they? That’s what no one should be panicking, no matter how many likes it gets you on Twitter.

The Pens are shuffling off to Buffalo tonight—it’ll be shown on AT&T Sportsnet and TNT, which is good for those of us who have a streaming service without the Turner stations.