Pens/Oilers Recap: Downward spiral continues, Edmonton shuts out Pittsburgh

More not pretty action from the Penguins

Pregame

Bryan Rust returns from IR for the Penguins.

First period

Kris Letang makes the first blunder, needlessly going up the middle and handing it right to Connor McDavid. Whoops. 1-0 just 68 seconds in.

The Pens make it to the first TV timeout without giving up anymore goals, which for them against the Oilers is never a given. Edmonton strikes again, shortly after that first break though. John Ludvig gets caught up behind his goalie somehow then jumps out in front just in time to deflect the puck him. Lovely. 2-0.

Second period

The Pens play strong in the second. The fans get one of the few things to cheer about when Ludvig jumps Warren Foegele and forces a fight after Foegele cut Erik Karlsson with a high-stick. Ludvig gets an instigator and 10 minute misconduct, but it was probably worth it at this point for somebody to stand up for a teammate for once.

Third period

Try as the Penguins might, they couldn’t get anything going on Calvin Pickard, a sad but true statement. Edmonton starts to pull away showing their quality, McDavid shifts the ice to find a wide open Darnell Nurse and he fires it home. 3-0.

Nurse gets another with a long-range shot to Tristan Jarry’s left after the goalie leaned to his right to look around the traffic in front. 4-0.

Some thoughts

• Rust looked great coming back. If this team was going to get the Michel Therren meltdown speech, Rust would be the modern day Max Talbot of the only player out there who is trying and playing with some passion.
• Well, Crosby looked OK at times too and was engaged with frustration understandably going as the game went along. He hit a cross-bar when it was 1-0 on a nice shot. Pittsburgh threw a lot on net again, but just can’t get anything going or the follow-up chances.
• Evgeni Malkin had no shots on goal and only one attempt. He must have passed up at least 4-5 legit looks at the net over to less threatening positions. It’s a total show of no confidence for him right now.
• The Letang cough up was atrocious too and he had more bad plays of the puck. The snowball effect of bad decisions leading to bad plays is becoming a vicious cycle for him in the past few days.
• Just way too many mistakes, misplays and poor execution for the Pens and little in the way of motivated, coordinated outputs. Most of the time the effort hasn’t been terrible, but just not consistent enough to overcome the mistakes made and no one is making plays offensively at the moment.

The team heads out to Ottawa on Tuesday in an attempt to break the downward spiral.