By Brian Hedger
https://www.dispatch.com/sports/20190226/penguins-5-blue-jackets-2--new-look-jackets-off-to-sputtering-start
February 26, 2019
Seth Jones #3 of the Columbus Blue Jackets gets called for slashing while trying to block a shot from Sidney Crosby #87 of the Pittsburgh Penguins during the third period on February 26, 2019 at Nationwide Arena in Columbus, Ohio. Pittsburgh defeated Columbus 5-2. (Photo by Kirk Irwin/Getty Images)
Three new toys were ready to go, looking to help the Blue Jackets rev up a turbocharged engine Tuesday night against the Pittsburgh Penguins.
Instead, the engine didn’t turnover quickly enough and stalled out in a 5-2 loss to the Penguins at Nationwide Arena.
“Throughout the game, I don’t think we developed enough offense,” Blue Jackets coach John Tortorella said after the Penguins outshot his team 27-23. “I don’t think we gave them much, but we certainly didn’t develop enough forechecking, which leads to us not developing enough offense.”
That wasn’t supposed to be the case.
The Blue Jackets acquired a star center, Matt Duchene, and a forward with 22 goals, Ryan Dzingel, in separate trades with the Ottawa Senators over the weekend. They also bolstered their defense Monday by adding a third goaltender, Keith Kinkaid, from the New Jersey Devils and veteran defenseman Adam McQuaid from the New York Rangers.
Duchene, Dzingel and McQuaid were all in the lineup, with Dzingel and McQuaid making their Blue Jackets debuts, but it didn’t matter to the Penguins.
Pittsburgh raced to a 3-0 lead despite starting without their top three defensemen, including Kris Letang.
“There’s some good stuff there (offensively), but that’s a wounded team on the back end that we played tonight and we didn’t take advantage of it,” Tortorella said. “We did not develop enough forechecking.”
The Penguins did early, and they cashed in with goals in the first period by Jake Guentzel and the first of two for Jared McCann.
Guentzel did what he often does against the Blue Jackets, scoring with 6:15 left in the first, and McCann scored 5:23 later for a 2-0 lead — finding the net with a wrist shot that appeared to deflect off defenseman David Savard’s stick.
Evgeni Malkin made it 3-0 just 1:15 into the second, scoring his 20th goal by simply throwing a long wrist shot at the net from the right point, and that was all the Penguins needed.
The Jackets clawed back with goals by Oliver Bjorkstrand and Cam Atkinson in the second, cutting the Penguins’ lead to 3-2, but the Jackets just couldn’t pull even — squandering a couple of scoring chances during a power play to start the third.
Nick Foligno hit the goal post with a shot 51 seconds into the period and then a 3-on-0 rush went by the wayside after Penguins goaltender Matt Murray tipped Atkinson’s cross-ice pass attempt, with the puck eluding Duchene to the left of the net.
″(Trailing) 3-0 is hard to come back from,” Foligno said. “And we had the chances. We had a 3-on-0 that we didn’t score on.”
The Penguins leaped into third place of the Metropolitan Division with the win and dropped the Blue Jackets to a point outside the playoff picture.
“I think we better understand that we need to get in, and we’re not going to skill our way in,” Tortorella said. “No matter what the transactions were, we need to stay true to our identity or we won’t have a chance.”
No comments:
Post a Comment