What Penguins can legit learn from ‘frustrating’ loss

Good Tuesday morning!

• I love it when they get mad like this.

No, I’m serious. There are few things, in fact, I’ve found more uplifting over the course of the Penguins’ wonderful winter than when something — or a slew of somethings — goes awry, and they get authentically angry about it, as they did after this 3-2 throttling at the Senators’ hands tonight at PPG Paints Arena.

Which they should’ve been.

Because, one, they’d been among the NHL’s winningest teams since Christmas at 13-2-2 with not one but two six-game winning streaks, including the one that ended here.

Because, two, referees Francis Charron and Alex Lepkowski gave the visitors five of the evening’s six power plays, followed by the league’s replay officials in Toronto gifting Claude Giroux the game-winning goal with 5:08 left in regulation.

And because, three … man, they were bad.

“Terrible,” Erik Karlsson would tell me. “Myself included. Everyone but Arty.”

Facts on all fronts: Arturs Silovs made 28 saves amid Ottawa’s skaters commanding nearly two-thirds of all puck possession in a 31-16 pounding on the shot clock, 63.2% of all shot attempts, and 21 of the 33 high-danger chances.

More from Karlsson: “I don’t think that we played the game that we’d been playing for the past six weeks. This was probably one of the few games where we couldn’t seem to figure out how we wanted to play.”

Well, yeah. And that, at least from this press box perspective, was the primary problem.

Watch this zone exit in the second period by Rickard Rakell:

SPORTSNET PITTSBURGH

“They were tight,” Rakell would tell me when I revisited that scene with him. “Every time we felt like we could get skating, there was somebody there. We couldn’t get going.”

Which they’ve had zero trouble doing. It’s been skate and score first, ask questions later.

Now, in fairness, the Senators, currently out of the Eastern playoff picture, have performed well of late, too. This was their fourth consecutive victory, they’ve outscored opponents by a 19-6 margin in that mini-surge, and they’ve achieved that mostly through a suffocating forecheck and — sorry, just calling it like it is — Trent Green’s recipe for a sickeningly passive retreat as soon as possession’s lost.

I’m talking five-man clothesline in the neutral zone.

I’m talking ’95 Devils, people.

Mercifully, this brand of hockey’s been largely buried in that era, but it’s been unearthed at least with these guys. And even though Dan Muse and staff had warned his players about it after the morning skate in Cranberry, even though Muse then publicly stressed that it’d represent an unusual challenge, it still came across in the first period as if the Penguins thought they were still facing the infinitely looser Blackhawks or Rangers … and then the same in the second period, and then the third. They’d either get hemmed in deep in the defensive zone, or they’d slam into a wall of white sweaters at the Ottawa blue line.

I brought this up with Ryan Shea, and he broke it down as only he can:

“I think they do what they do very well,” he began, “but I think their key is the neutral zone and how they shut that down, which leads to a lot of their odd-man rushes. We had too many turnovers at our blue line, but also at their blue line. So it’s a pretty frustrating night for everyone. They were playing so aggressive, so tight … but when teams do that, we’ve gotta play behind them and get behind them and use our speed and dominate down low like we have.”

This. Exactly this.

Hockey 101 prescribes pushing that puck past all the bodies in the neutral zone, then pursuing it vigorously. ‘Dump-and-chase,’ as it’s called in the culture. Or ‘chip-and-chase,’ if it’s a simple touch on the puck to avoid icing. It turns the opposing defensemen’s backs to the play and forces them to deal with whatever punishment might away at the end boards. Which brings turnovers. Which brings a sustained attack.

Never really happened. Instead, the giveaways just kept coming, an excremental 18 in all.

I asked Muse what the Penguins might do if/when seeing something like this again.

“We’ve seen it this season. This isn’t the first time,” he’d begin, referring to encountering such a conservative posture. “There’ve been games where we’ve been better. I don’t think this is gonna be like this all the time.”

He took a breath there and shook his head slightly.

“It wasn’t there tonight. You look at our execution, just coming out of our zone. There were plays to be made, and we just weren’t making them. The support wasn’t there. We were kinda playing into the game they want to play. I think we’ve shown enough over the course of the season to believe that we can generate off the forecheck. We can get into the offensive zone without trying to force plays, and we can generate that way.”

That’s the dump or chip.

“We weren’t doing that,” he continued. “So it felt like the great, great majority of the game, we were either defending or without the puck. And you don’t want to play that game. Credit to them. They played hard, checked hard. But I thought a lot of this … we needed to look in the mirror in terms of the way we played. The only reason this was a close game was Arty.”

That’s a quality answer. Time will tell if there’ll be a quality general response upon seeing it again.

• Above are the full highlights. Not much to see, beyond a bunch of good saves from Silovs. One of his better efforts on the season, for sure.

• I really don’t have much to add to the Giroux goal, other than to share that multiple players in the Pittsburgh room told me they saw a clear toe-pick in how he tumbled forward into Silovs and the right pipe. And even beyond that being noticeable on the replays, it adds up. Karlsson poking at the right edge of Giroux’s calf wouldn’t cause him to collapse as he did.

• Also and relevant: Whatever. This one had no business being a point, much less a W.

• Actually, no, wait: The NHL has no clue what constitutes goaltender interference anymore. As such, Muse was well within reason to challenge, just as he was to say afterward, “I’d challenge it again.” Because if they don’t know what goaltender interference is at league headquarters, who the hell knows how they’d respond?

• The Islanders lost, 4-1, to the Capitals tonight in Washington, so the Penguins stayed two points ahead of third-place New York in advance of their meeting tonight in Elmont. Which, I’ll remind, was always going to mean the most of these final three pre-Olympic games. It’s all about the Metro.

• Bryan Rust will be back for this one, and that’ll be the best news for Sidney Crosby, who struggled in nearly every facet in this one. Hey, he’s earned a mulligan … or 87 million of ’em.

• Ben Kindel, of all people at age 18, appeared to be the only one adopting the right approach: He skated full-bore right at the Senators, free of worry. If they’d poke him, he’d just sustain his speed and swoop right after it.

• Egor Chinakhov vs. an NHL goaltender should never be seen as representative of anyone anywhere. It’s not that his finishes are excellent as much as they’re effortless.

• The crowds are back, I’d say. Monday night. Unattractive opponent. Freezing and icy still. And this was a couple hundred shy of capacity at 17,967.

• Thanks for reading. My next stop: Thursday night in Buffalo, N.Y.