CALGARY, Alberta — Tristan Jarry came ready to play. His teammates did not.
It was arguably their worst performance this season. If not for Jarry, who made 31 saves, they might have lost 6-1. They were that bad and he was that good.
And yet, improbably, the Penguins were able to escape with a point, losing in a shootout, 2-1, to the Calgary Flames at Scotiabank Saddledome on Monday.
Calgary’s Mikael Backlund scored in the seventh round to win it for the Flames.
The Penguins were looking to start a new winning streak Monday in Calgary after the Montreal Canadiens snapped their five-game run Saturday at PPG Paints Arena. But Monday’s loss was the second in a row for Mike Sullivan’s squad.
The Flames peppered Jarry throughout the first period. The home team had a 4-on-1 rush in the early going. Those are about as common as a Kasperi Kapanen haircut, but Jarry kept the puck out. Later on, he smothered Johnny Gaudreau’s tap-in try then sprawled over to get his glove on Elias Lindholm’s shot.
Seven of his 10 saves in the first were on shots from the slot, per Sportlogiq.
The Penguins, on the other hand, didn’t muster much offensively in the opening period. For much of it, they had more icing infractions than shots on goal.
Calgary’s three-man forecheck posed them problems. Flames forwards hustled in then stuck to the boards, forcing several careless passes into the middle.
The Flames kept coming in the second period. Jarry made a few more big saves and Gaudreau rang the right post before they finally beat him midway through.
In the neutral zone, Milan Lucic banked the puck off the boards then spun around Chad Ruhwedel, one of the many puck battles the Flames won Monday.
As Lucic skated down the left wing with the grace and beauty of an angry moose stumbling down a snowy hillside, excited Flames fans yelled “Loooooooch!” Then the big lug let a shot go from the left circle that got through Jarry’s pads.
That scoring play was one of several rush chances for the Flames. But they were otherwise content to chip and chase and put the pressure on the Penguins.
Meanwhile, the Penguins had just 21 shots, few threatening, in regulation.
Jacob Markstrom shut out the Penguins when these two teams met in Pittsburgh earlier this month. The massive Swede stopped 45 shots, 16 from the slot, leaving Penguins players shaking their heads at his lateral quickness and poise.
In this one, they hardly tested him. Dominik Simon, skating against his old team, had a good look late in the second period but Markstrom stretched out his right pad to keep the 1-0 lead intact. That was their best chance in regulation.
Simon would later leave the game after getting hit in the face with a shot.
A briefly promising play early in the third period summed up their night to that point. The middle of the Calgary defense opened up for Danton Heinen, one of their leading scorers. But he tripped over the blue line and flailed at the puck as he slid on the fresh sheet of ice. The Flames scooped up the puck and were off.
But somehow, the Penguins found a way to get the game into overtime.
Jarry made another spectacular save in the third period, loading up to lunge across his crease and get his blocker on Matthew Tkachuk’s rebound attempt. Then, with 7:25 left in regulation, Jake Guentzel scored on the first power play of the night to tie the score at 1-1. Sidney Crosby picked up the primary assist.
That goal extended Guentzel’s point streak, the NHL’s longest, to 10 games.
It was otherwise a quiet night for the top line, which had been starting to build some momentum in recent games. Guentzel was on a roll. Crosby, still knocking the rust off, had his first multi-point game Saturday. And Evan Rodrigues has continued to impress with his wheels, playmaking ability and scorching shot.
Early in overtime, Gaudreau put another shot off a post. Later in the extra session, after Gaudreau pulled the puck through Crosby to get a clean look from a few feet out, Jarry robbed Gaudreau with a glove save to get it to a shootout.
Gaudreau finally beat Jarry in the third round of the shootout. Kris Letang kept the Penguins alive. But Backlund would beat Jarry to win it for the Flames.
Jarry, the league’s hottest goalie right now, continued to frustrate teams from his home country. He arrived in Calgary with a 5-0-0 record and a .980 save percentage against Canadian clubs this season. That included a pair of recent shutouts.
The Penguins will continue their four-game road trip on Wednesday when they visit Connor McDavid, Leon Draisaitl and the high-scoring Edmonton Oilers.
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