Penguins/Oilers Recap: Jarry returns to Pittsburgh a winner, Edmonton outpaces Pens 6-4

Pregame

Lotsa change for the Penguins, Stuart Skinner and Brett Kulak make dual debuts against their former club, Danton Heinen slots in for Ville Koivunen up front. There’s also a Jack St. Ivany sighting for his NHL season debut after an early injury and first game in the big league in over a year.

The visiting Oilers get in the act of starting a goalie against his former team, welcome back to Pittsburgh Tristan Jarry! Hardly seems like he’s left at all.

First period

It’s not a bad start for the Penguins, Rickard Rakell makes a strong move towards the net and draws the first power play of the game. Pittsburgh scores late into it when Ben Kindel hits Justin Brazeau with a nice pass and Brazeau beats Jarry cleanly. But wait, Edmonton immediately moves to challenge. Tommy Novak made a hesitation move near the blueline courtesy of a defender’s pressure, that usually spells bad news for the timing on things like this. Doesn’t take long for the review to see the Pens were way off-side, happening right in front of the linesman (way to go, stripes!). No goal after all.

Shortly after, penalty trouble brings on a nightmare for the home team. Heinen heads off for interference and then Bryan Rust joins his teammate in the penalty box after a fairly ticky-tack hooking call. The Oilers are looking at a 5v3 and then they’re REALLY looking at a 5v3 when the new addition Kulak accidentally skymails a puck in his own zone and gets called for delay of game.

Leon Draisaitl hits the post squarely while looking for his 1,000th point, it’s not difficult to see that Edmonton’s elite skill players are building up for an explosion. Quick passes from Evan Bouchard to Draisaitl to McDavid to Zach Hyman in a few shakes of a lamb’s tail ends up exploiting the shorthanded Pens. Easy one for Hyman to knock in, the bench clears in celebration of Draisaitl’s 1,000th point.

Draisaitl gets started on his next 1,000 points just fourteen seconds later, courtesy of a great play by McDavid. McDavid winds up in the neutral zone and you can’t let that guy get that kind of speed hitting the blueline. Parker Wotherspoon gets put on a poster trying to knock McDavid off stride, it barely phases him. McDavid dekes backhand and dribbles in a shot on his former goalie to add in another power play goal to make the game 2-0 just like that.

The Pens get a goal back in the last minute of the period. After not getting many bounces or close calls all night, something goes the home team’s way when an Edmonton defender accidentally hits an official with a clearing attempt. The puck settles for Anthony Mantha, he shoots and Jarry kicks a big rebound out for Novak to tap in. 2-1 game.

That’s it for the first, the Pens were OK when they weren’t in penalty trouble but taking three minors within about 1:20 is significant trouble when messing around with the likes of McDavid and Draisaitl. 2-1 deficit, with that one near missed of a disallowed goal serving as the difference-maker after 20 minutes.

Second period

It’s all Edmonton early with their speed and skill controlling the puck for large stretches of the first five minutes, out-shooting the Pens 5-1. The Oilers score, Matthew Savoie gets a cross-ice pass and beats his former teammate Skinner with a low shot. 3-1 game.

Draisaitl goes to the penalty box for a roughing call, big power play for the Pens and they come through. Sidney Crosby goes low-to-high and finds Erik Karlsson in the middle of the ice. Karlsson lets ‘er rip and it gets through Jarry. 3-2 game.

Another Edmonton power play, another bad result for the Penguins. Evan Bouchard sneaks way down from his defense position and rips a top shelf shot. 4-2.

Edmonton nearly scores but a long review shows not enough evidence to see if the puck went all the way under Skinner’s pad and over the line.

One more Pittsburgh power play at the the end of the game, not much going.

The Oilers just a little bit sharper, a little more dangerous in this game.

Third period

Soon after the first TV timeout the Oilers get to their first three-goal lead of the night. An odd man rush goes awry when Draisaitl tries to feed a puck right but it deflects back to a rushing Vasily Podkolzin. No Penguin defender is on him so he’s able to touch it in. 5-2 game.

Ty Emberson gets a stick right into the mouth of Ben Kindel, Pittsburgh awarded a four-minute power play as a result. Any hopes of a comeback are snuffed out quickly when they don’t score or get too many good looks at it until the final 30 seconds when Crosby nearly catches Jarry with a high shot.

The Pens pull Skinner with over three minutes to go, and it pays off with a 6v5 goal. Bryan Rust steers a backhand goal in from an Anthony Mantha shot and it’s a 5-3 game with still 3:09 to play.

That will be as close as Pittsburgh gets, Rust gets another chance but can’t handle the tough pass, fast forward a little bit and McDavid hits the empty net to score his 20th of the season and salt this one away at 6-3.

That’s not the final goal, however, Edmonton stops playing and Danton Heinen is able to sling in a goal with 13 seconds to go to at least open his own account this year with his first NHL goal of the season. 6-4 is the final.

Some thoughts

• Player usage and over-reliance on vets can make you want to scream sometimes. Noel Acciari took a 45 second shift, Heinen took a penalty. Then Acciari was on the ice immediately after killing the first penalty for the first 30 seconds, got to the bench for less than a minute until Rust took the second penalty and then Acciari was put right back out there to kill another 3v5 situation for another 1:18 that included the first goal of the game. If that pays off Muse looks like a genius and there are only so many viable options for players in that situation, but do we really need Noel Acciari on the ice for going on three minutes? Is there no one else that could do the job? Specialty teams units in the NHL are often inflexible, the usage wasn’t unusual but maybe it should be.
• Similarly on Bouchard’s power play goal in the second period, Acciari was at the end of a 1:30 shift. There were opportunities to change, what is going on here? Acciari was also matched up more than once against Draisaitl in a clear strategy.
• Per Bob Grove, Draisaitl joins fine company for the players that have recorded career point against Pittsburgh: Alex Ovechkin, Patrick Marleau and Joe Nieuwendyk.
• Not the best of first impressions for Kulak with that unfortunate penalty, he also was charged with two giveaways and all three of his shots got blocked in 15:22 of work. Considering he only had the morning skate with a brand new team it will take some acclimation there. (Although, with snark, Kulak fit right in as a Penguin to clear the puck over the glass while the team was short-handed as one right of initiation).
• You would think on the scouting report on Jarry the Pens would know better than anyone to send shots through traffic as an area where he was some difficulties fighting through and picking up the puck. That’s about exactly what happened for Karlsson to score from distance on the power play. Then again, maybe they didn’t spend enough time on that point since they kept trying the cutesty back door play, as if inspired by the Oilers’ puck movement. That didn’t work as well.
• One thing is for sure in the Skinner for Jarry swap: Jarry is much better, smoother, more effective etc at playing the puck outside of the net. It’s rare to see a goalie these days as clunky and unsure as Skinner is.
• Pittsburgh power play on the night: 1 for 6. Edmonton power play: 3 for 4. Roll credits, that’s about all you need to know. Situationally with all the 5v3 time it was a lot easier for the Oilers to feast, which counts for context but at the end of the day those results are telling and meaningful. This version of the Pens aren’t going to win too many games when they’re -2 on the night in the special teams scoring difference.
• Crosby got one point, his next one will tie Mario Lemieux at 1,723 for most all-time among Penguins. Shame he couldn’t get there on this homestand.
• Another unfortunate thing that didn’t happen on the homestand was the Penguins winning a game (0-2-3). The future remains uncertain as to just how meaningful this point in time will be, this moment could be looked back on as a turning point of the season going south if it comes to that. Pittsburgh had a .630 points percentage just eight days ago on December 8th, good for 3rd in the whole Eastern Conference. At the end of these five home games, they’re at .578%, dropping to 8th in a hurry. Still not the worst place to be after 32 games, all things considered, but the margins built up early in the year got eroded in a major way in the past week or so.

Hey, at this point maybe heading out on the road won’t be a bad thing at this point. It’s off to Canada for the next two games starting in Ottawa on Thursday.