Better effort, but the Panthers come up empty in a ‘frustrating loss’ to the Penguins
Kris Letang had just skated back onto the ice from the penalty box when the puck made a bad bounce off Florida Panthers defenseman Aaron Ekblad’s stick near center ice.
Letang pounced at the opportunity and rushed unopposed toward Panthers goaltender Sergei Bobrovsky. A couple quick moves and a backhanded strike gave the Pittsburgh Penguins an early lead.
The Panthers played catch up the rest of the night, and Florida’s woes since the All-Star break continued despite arguably their best all-around effort in that span.
Final score at the BB&T Center on Saturday: Penguins 3, Panthers 2.
Florida (29-19-6) is now 1-3-1 in its five games since their 10-day break and have been outscored 18-9.
They showed marked improvement on Saturday, playing with aggression in the offensive zone, out-shooting the Penguins 35-22 and controlling puck possession for most of the night. It was a stark contrast to their 7-2 loss to Vegas on Thursday.
But the end result was ultimately the same, another game with no points to show for and another squandered chance to make a move for positioning in the Stanley Cup playoff race.
It also didn’t help the Panthers that Penguins goaltender Tristan Jarry had a solid night in net, making 33 saves in the win and stopping his share of high-danger shots. Jarry saved three shots in the final 35 seconds with the Panthers going with an empty net to seal the win for the Penguins.
“A frustrating loss,” Panthers coach Joel Quenneville said. “We did a lot of good things. It’s one of those games where when you play like this you’re going to win the vast majority of these games. We did a lot of good things right. A little tighter on what we gave up. We had some great looks. When you play hard like that we’ll find a way.”
Mike Hoffman and Brett Connolly scored goals for the Panthers, but both came with Florida down a pair.
The Penguins (34-15-5) had a 2-0 lead on goals by Letang and Teddy Blueger when Hoffman sniped a slap shot from the right circle for his 21st goal of the season and the Panthers’ first of the night with 2:38 left in the first period.
A Sidney Crosby power-play goal on a redirection after a flurry of stopped shots early in the second gave Pittsburgh a 3-1 lead. Connolly cut the deficit back to one about a minute later with a slap shot just to the left of the net.
“It felt annoying,” Hoffman said. “We played really well. A couple of their goals, we made it too easy for them to get. They’re a good team and they’re going to earn goals themselves. We can’t give them too many free ones like we did tonight.”
▪ Aleksander Barkov returned to the lineup on Saturday, leading Panthers forwards in ice time (21:27) while taking four shots-on-goal and winning 20 of 27 faceoff attempts.
▪ Playoff standing updates: The Toronto Maple Leafs lost in overtime to Montreal and the Philadelphia Flyers won 7-2 over the Washington Capitals. The Panthers (64 points) are now two points behind Toronto for third place in the Atlantic Division with two games in hand and three points behind Philadelphia for the second Eastern Conference wild-card spot with one game in hand.
