The Penguins were back in action last night against the Utah Mammoth. They played a pretty good game overall, but dumb mental mistakes continue to plague them.
Erik Karlsson was guilty of a bad cross-ice turnover that led to the first of three goals from hometown kid Logan Cooley. Sidney Crosby didn’t have a great performance either, as he lost Cooley as his defensive assignment a few times, leading to scoring chances and a goal. When the Penguins weren’t making boneheaded passes or losing their defensive assignments, they were controlling the game.
The newly formed Kindel-Chinny-Geno line was rather good all evening. They were so good that they were given what looked like the final shift of regulation. During that shift, Kindel banged home a rebound with 25 seconds left on the clock to give Pittsburgh the lead.
After the goal, the Penguins sent out their fourth line and Declan Carlile, which turned into a gigantic mistake.
The Penguins lost the faceoff, lost a puck battle, and failed to get a stick in the way of any Mammoth player. Another hometown kid, Vincent Trocheck, fired a puck on Silovs that was difficult to control. Cooley then completed his hat trick by batting the rebound out of midair to tie the game with one second remaining.
Carlile was responsible for Cooley in that moment and just let him get a free ride to the crease and the puck.
In no world should the Penguins lose a game where they take the lead with under 30 seconds left in regulation, but hockey is a crazy game. Even Dan Muse deserves criticism, as putting Carlile out in that situation was a huge error.
Despite having a good performance overall, their mental mistakes throughout the evening easily could have resulted in a regulation loss. Arturs Silovs was the team’s saving grace, as he was forced to make a bevy of incredible saves.
The team in front of Silovs allowed Utah to get Grade A scoring chances all evening, yet he still put them in a position to win. It looked like the Penguins were finally going to reward him, but instead, their supposed most defensively sound players couldn’t muster 25 seconds of shutdown defense.
Utah went on to win 4-3 in overtime.
A very pathetic loss and one that should never happen again.
