It happened again. You probably saw the final score in pittsburgh penguins game against the Tampa Bay Lightning on Tuesday night—a 2-1 shootout loss—and felt that familiar, nagging sting. It’s not just that they lost. It’s the way they lost.
The Penguins are currently stuck in a weird kind of hockey purgatory. One night they look like the mid-2010s juggernaut that could steamroll anyone, and the next, they’re struggling to find the back of the net against a hot goaltender. Tuesday at PPG Paints Arena was the latter. This wasn't a blowout. It wasn't a failure of effort. It was a 65-minute chess match that ended with Nikita Kucherov doing Nikita Kucherov things in the shootout.
Honestly, the 2-1 result is a bit of a liar. If you just look at the box score, you see a low-scoring affair. But if you watched the game, you saw Arturs Silovs and Andrei Vasilevskiy playing out of their absolute minds.
Breaking Down the Score in Pittsburgh Penguins Game
The first two periods were a desert. Zero goals. Plenty of chances, sure, but no finish. The Penguins actually had two power plays in the first frame and couldn't convert. That’s been a recurring theme lately, hasn't it? When the score in pittsburgh penguins game stays stuck at 0-0 for forty minutes, the tension in the building starts to get heavy. You could feel it through the TV.
Then came the third. J.J. Moser finally broke the deadlock with about five minutes left. It was one of those "greasy" goals—the kind that makes you want to throw your remote. Silovs actually made the initial save on Yanni Gourde, but the puck just sitting there in the crease was too much of a gift.
But then, the legend himself stepped up. Evgeni Malkin.
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With 2:16 left on the clock, Malkin absolutely ripped one past Vasilevskiy. It was his 10th of the season. The place went nuts. At that point, the momentum felt like it had shifted. We were going to overtime, and in the "City of Champions," that usually means a frantic, heart-attack-inducing five minutes of three-on-three.
Shootout Heartbreak
Overtime solved nothing. So, we went to the skills competition.
- Gage Goncalves scored for Tampa in the second round.
- Egor Chinakhov answered back for the Pens in the third.
- Nikita Kucherov eventually sealed the deal.
Just like that, the Penguins walked away with one point instead of two. It's their third straight loss (0-2-1), which is a bitter pill to swallow after they had just reeled off six wins in a row. Hockey is a game of streaks, but this one feels particularly ill-timed.
The Erik Karlsson Void
You can't talk about the score in pittsburgh penguins game without mentioning who wasn't on the ice. Right before puck drop, we got the news that Erik Karlsson is headed to the IR with a lower-body injury. He's out for at least two weeks.
That is massive.
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Karlsson is the engine for the transition game. Without him, the defense pairings had to be completely shuffled. Kris Letang and Brett Kulak moved up to the top pair. Jack St. Ivany had to step into a bigger role alongside Parker Wotherspoon. To be fair, the defense played remarkably well. They held a Tampa team—which had scored at least four goals in every game during their 11-game winning streak—to just one goal in regulation.
Bryan Rust put it best after the game: "I don't think we gave them too many good looks." And he's right. The defensive structure was there. The goaltending was there. The scoring? Not so much.
What the Standings Tell Us
The Eastern Conference is a total meat grinder this year. This loss puts the Penguins at 21-14-10. That’s 52 points. In a vacuum, that’s a solid record. But look at the Metropolitan Division. They are currently sitting in 5th place, trailing the Hurricanes, Islanders, Capitals, and Flyers.
The crazy part? They are tied in points with Philadelphia. Every single overtime point matters. Losing that second point in the shootout might not seem like a tragedy in January, but come April, we might be looking back at this Tuesday night game as a "what if" moment.
Reality Check: The Power Play Problem
We have to talk about the man advantage. It's the elephant in the room. The Penguins went 0-for-3 on the power play against Tampa.
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When you have the talent on this roster, you expect a certain level of lethality. Instead, it often looks static. They’re looking for the perfect cross-seam pass instead of just funneling pucks to the net. Against a goalie like Vasilevskiy, if you don't create chaos, you aren't going to score. It’s basically that simple.
What’s Next for the Pens?
The schedule doesn't get any easier. They’ve got the Flyers coming into PPG Paints Arena on Thursday night. That’s a "four-point game" if there ever was one. If the Penguins want to stay in the thick of the playoff race, they have to find a way to win without Karlsson’s creativity on the back end.
The identity of this team is shifting. They aren't the high-flying circus they used to be. They’re becoming a grittier, defensive-minded group under Dan Muse, but they still need that "star power" to finish games.
Actionable Insights for Fans
If you're following the team closely, here’s what you should be watching for in the next few matchups:
- The Fourth Line Impact: With injuries piling up, guys like Tristan Broz and Ryan Graves (just recalled from WBS) need to provide more than just "safe minutes."
- Silovs vs. Jarry: Arturs Silovs has been steady, but Tristan Jarry needs to find his elite form again if the Pens are going to survive this stretch without Karlsson.
- Net Front Presence: Watch for whether the Pens start putting more bodies in front of the goalie. They’re playing too much "perimeter hockey" right now.
The score in pittsburgh penguins game was a disappointment, but it wasn't a disaster. They took a point from the hottest team in the NHL. That counts for something. Now, they just need to make sure they don't let this three-game skid turn into a mid-season collapse. Keep an eye on the injury report—two weeks without Karlsson is going to be a long time.