PITTSBURGH — If the PPG Paints Arena crowd’s timid reactions to the Penguins’ pregame introductions were any indication of how the team’s Friday-night game against Winnipeg was expected to go, there was correctly little reason to hope for a winning effort.
The injured-and-ill Penguins dropped a 4-1 decision to the Jets as Pittsburgh operated without arguably its top three defensemen and instead used Brian Dumoulin and Mark Friedman for its top defensive pairing. The Penguins were outshot 40-23 on a night where Winnipeg could seemingly get wherever it wanted on the offensive end.
Kris Letang remains in Montreal with his family following the death of his father, in addition to dealing with a lower-body injury. Jeff Petry, meanwhile, is still on long-term injured reserve and Marcus Pettersson sat out with illness.
Without the aforementioned trio of blue-liners, Pittsburgh gave up the game’s first goal following a high-sticking penalty against Jake Guenzel. The Penguins’ penalty kill was unsuccessful on their first opportunity of the night, letting up a power-play goal to Blake Wheeler.
Netminder Dustin Tokarski sprawled out to prevent a loose puck from crossing the goal line, but he could not regather himself to keep Wheeler’s wrist shot out of the net. The Jets thought they got their second goal of the night later in the period from Neal Pionk, but coach Mike Sullivan successfully challenged the call and the referees ruled Winnipeg was offside, negating Pionk’s score.
A minute later, the Penguins evened the tally when Kasperi Kapenen delivered a perfect pass to a streaking Drew O’Connor, who finished off the play with his second goal of the season.
Winnipeg was convinced it got its second score of the evening in the dwindling minutes of the first frame, but it was invalidated because of goaltender interference. Jets coach Rick Bowness challenged that there was an infraction on the play, but the officiating crew confirmed its decision and Winnipeg was held to just one goal in the first period despite outshooting Pittsburgh 15-8.
What was originally a quiet second period took a turn during a 23-second stretch in the frame’s final two minutes. Evgeni Malkin fell to the ice after colliding with Winnipeg’s Brenden Dillon, presenting the Jets with a 5-on-4 opportunity that they took full advantage of.
Wheeler located a wide-open Mark Scheifele in front of the crease to put Winnipeg back on top. Immediately after, Nikolaj Ehlers made the most of a point-blank opportunity set up by Kyle Connor, giving the Jets a two-goal cushion heading into the second intermission.
Early in the third period, Jason Zucker and Dillon dropped the gloves, which prompted the home crowd to become the loudest it was all night. The Penguins could not capitalize on that momentum, though, and instead let up Scheifele’s 26th goal of the season to make it 4-1 in favor of the visitors and put the game out of reach.
ICE CHIPS
— Pettersson’s illness was the cause of his first missed game of the season. Pettersson is averaging a career-high 20:43 of ice time per game in his fourth season with the Penguins
— Tokarski, who relieved Casey DeSmith on Tuesday night and gave up one goal on 19 shots in the Penguins’ 5-4 win over the Vancouver Canucks, got his first career start for Pittsburgh against Winnipeg. The 33-year-old netminder faced a high volume of shots and stopped 36 of 40 of them
— Two days after being sent down to Wilkes-Barre/Scranton, Friedman was called up again by the Penguins on Friday and played 16:06 minutes against the Jets. Friedman had previously played in three games for the Penguins this season but was a healthy scratch in Pittsburgh’s last quartet of contests
— Dumoulin partnered with Friedman, which meant he no longer joined 22-year-old Ty Smith on the blue line. Instead of working with Dumoulin, Smith operated with Chad Ruhwedel on the second unit. Dumoulin and Smith had shared a defensive pairing in each of the Penguins’ last five games
— Defenseman Taylor Fedun, who was called up from the Baby Pens on Thursday morning, was a healthy scratch against the Jets
— Guentzel’s high-sticking penalty was his team-high 14th of the season, giving him 28 penalty minutes on the year. In 37 games, Guentzel has now matched his third-most penalty minutes in a campaign.
— Early in the second period, Bryan Rust batted down a cross-ice pass by Smith with his right hand. Smith’s pass was a firm one and Rust appeared to favor his right hand on the way back to the Penguins’ bench. The right wing stayed in the game the rest of the way
— Late in the second period, Dumoulin took a deflected puck to the visor. He went to the bench but seemed to be okay and returned to the ice shortly after
STAT N’AT
100 — Kapanen’s first-period assist was his 11th of the season, but it was also the 100th of his eight-year NHL career. In his third campaign with Pittsburgh after spending parts of five in Toronto, Kapanen now has 51 Penguins assists to go along with his 49 for the Maple Leafs.
COMING UP
The Penguins will be back in action less than 24 hours after their Friday-night game against Winnipeg. The team will fly south to face the Carolina Hurricanes at their home of PNC Arena at 7 p.m. on Saturday night.
