The Utah Mammoth beat the Pittsburgh Penguins 5-4 on Saturday in Utah, handing Pittsburgh its fourth straight road loss and pushing the Penguins to 1-6-1. It was the kind of one-goal game that can swing either way, but the Penguins left with another loss after failing to finish their four-game road trip with a win.
The result came after Pittsburgh had opened the season with two wins, only to fall into an early skid. Now, the Penguins return home trying to stop the slide before it gets any worse.
Crosby says Pittsburgh did not put together a complete game
Sidney Crosby said the team simply did not put a full game together. That was the simplest read on a night when the Penguins had leads, battled back, and still could not find a way to close it out.
Crosby pointed to the Mammoth getting sustained shifts in Pittsburgh's zone and the Penguins struggling to generate much of a forecheck. In his view, that combination made it difficult for Pittsburgh to wear Utah down, while giving the Mammoth plenty of energy to keep attacking.
He also said the Penguins need to be a little crisper with the puck and find better ways to possess it, or, when they do put it in, find a way to get it back. The message was straightforward: Pittsburgh was in the game, but not consistently enough to control it.
Power play provided a brief lift
There was at least one encouraging stretch before Saturday. The Penguins had gone 0-for-20 on the power play before finally finding success against the Golden Knights, and that unit then produced a 3-for-3 run that gave the group a short-term silver lining.
Crosby said getting one last game gave the team some confidence, and he liked seeing a couple of chances go in. He also singled out the recent production from Rickard Rakell and Tommy Novak, calling it good to see them put a couple in the back of the net after some tough sledding on the power play.
Rakell said the Penguins need more of the desperation they showed late in the game, along with a simpler approach that gets the puck toward the net. That, he said, is the kind of formula Pittsburgh will need more often if it wants to be successful.
What comes next
The Penguins now head back to Pittsburgh, flying home on Tuesday. They will practice on Wednesday before hosting Florida on Thursday. After a winless road trip and a 1-6-1 start, the next stretch already feels important for a team that has not found enough consistency at either end of the ice.
The early record is still salvageable, but the margin for error is getting smaller. If Pittsburgh wants to turn things around, it will need a more complete game than the one it showed against the Utah Mammoth.
