Penguins

What went wrong for Penguins vs. Montreal?

Taylor Haase
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The Canadiens’ Artturi Lehkonen celebrates scoring against Tristan Jarry in the third period Friday in Toronto. - GETTY

The Penguins on Friday were eliminated from the postseason with a 2-0 loss to the Canadiens in Game 4.

The Penguins will be one of the eight teams entered into the draft lottery for a shot at drafting Alexis Lafreniere, while the No. 24-seeded Canadiens will be moving onto the field of 16 and face either the Flyers or the Lightning next.

With the exception of probably the guys in the Montreal locker room, it's an outcome that few expected.

What went wrong?

"Listen, it's a three out of five," Sidney Crosby said after the loss and what was probably his worst birthday party ever in his 33 years. "Anything can happen. We did some good things. Did we do enough? No. Give them credit, they played really well. Got some big plays throughout the four games. ... This was the situation we were faced with. We would have loved a better outcome, but it's hard to really tie it all in. It's basically like starting fresh. It's hard to really draw off the season as a whole when there's a four-month break and you start all over again. ... This was a whole separate thing, and we didn't play well enough to win."

Where did everything go wrong? Here's a look at four of the biggest issues that sent the Penguins packing after just four games.

GOALTENDING

We knew going into this that goaltending was the only area where the Canadiens had a clear edge over the Penguins. Carey Price is regularly voted the No. 1 goaltender by his peers.

The Penguins started Matt Murray through the first three games, who just didn't play well enough. They turned to Tristan Jarry in the final game and he played well, stopping 20 of 21 shots for a .952 save percentage. But the change happened too late.

DEFENSE

Most of the goals scored by Montreal occurred when the third pairing of Jack Johnson and Justin Schultz were on the ice, and despite the pairing's clear struggles through the first three games, they stuck together for the fourth and final game.

The problems went beyond the third pairing, though. Letang had nine giveaways. Brian Dumoulin had five, and a bad pinch in Game 1 that led directly to a Canadiens 2-on-1 and a goal. Schultz had five giveaways. Marcus Pettersson had three and looked shaky all series. John Marino, playing in the first NHL playoff games of his career, had just two giveaways was their best defenseman throughout the series.

THIRD LINE

We've seen in past Penguins postseason runs -- most notably with the HBK line of Carl Hagelin, Nick Bonino, and Phil Kessel -- how much of a game-changer a solid third-line can be.

They just didn't have anything like that this year. The third line was a line of leftovers, the players who probably should have been in the lineup but didn't fit in either the top two or fourth lines. Patrick Marleau, Jared McCann and Patric Hornqvist never developed an identity as a line. In their 16:46 of even strength ice time over their three games together, they were on the ice for 10 shot attempts for and 16 against for a CF% of just 38.46. When the lines were shuffled and Hornqvist was bumped up, the line didn't get any better, and it was on the ice for five shot attempts for and 10 against in 10:24 of ice time for a CF% of 33.33.

Marleau looked very much his age, and McCann just isn't best suited at center. Marleau ended up being the only forward who played in all four games to not record a single point. McCann, who was a healthy scratch in Game 3, didn't record a shot on goal until the final game.

The line finished with no goals at even strength and one goal allowed.

Sullivan likes to say that it takes more than "12, six, and two" (12 forwards, six defensemen, and two goaltenders) to make a run in the playoffs. They didn't even get that much in this series, and one of the biggest holes there was in the third line.

POWER PLAY

Montreal's power play isn't good. It went 0-for-12 in the series, which is an improvement from how it looked in the exhibition game against Toronto, where it didn't score but also allowed two shorthanded goals.

The Penguins' power play wasn't much better heading into this, but with the personnel it has, it had the potential to be a difference maker. It wasn't. And they had ample opportunities to make that difference, the most glaring of which was the extended 5-on-3 in Game 1 that produced nothing.

"Those guys are deadly when you give them time and space, even power plays I thought the penalty kill stepped up," said Canadiens defenseman Shea Weber. "We talked about not taking as many penalties, we were better at that tonight, but the penalty kill stepped up when we really needed them to."

____________________

THE ESSENTIALS

• Boxscore
• Video highlights
• NHL scoreboard

THE INJURIES

• Nick Bjugstad missed the playoffs after undergoing surgery to repair a herniated disc in late May.

• Dominik Simon is sidelined until November after undergoing shoulder surgery on April 29.

• Zach Trotman was being held out this summer with what sounds like a lingering injury.

THE LINEUPS

Sullivan’s lines and pairings:

Jake Guentzel — Sidney Crosby — Bryan Rust
Jason Zucker — Evgeni Malkin — Patric Hornqvist
Patrick Marleau — Sam Lafferty — Conor Sheary
Zach Aston-Reese — Teddy Blueger — Brandon Tanev

Brian Dumoulin — Kris Letang
Marcus Pettersson — John Marino
Jack Johnson — Justin Schultz

And for Claude Julien‘s Canadiens:

Tomas Tatar — Nick Suzuki — Brendan Gallagher
Jonathan Drouin — Jesperi Kotkaniemi — Joel Armia
Paul Byron — Jesperi Kotkaniemi — Artturi Lehkonen
Dale Weise — Max Domi — Alex Bezile

Ben Chiarot — Shea Weber
Brett Kulak — Jeff Petry
Victor Mete —Xavier Ouellet

BEHIND THE SCENES

• The Penguins used the Toronto Raptors locker room again on Friday:

• That tweet from the equipment account reminded me of the video showing the literal tons of equipment that they had to pack up during training camp to prepare to be in the bubble until October. That will all now be brought back to Pittsburgh after only a few days:

BY THE NUMBERS

• This was the first game of the series in which the Canadiens were not outshot. Shots were an even 22-22.

• The Penguins were outhit in this game, 48-35.

• The only skaters who played in all four games and didn't record a point this series were Letang, Marleau, Johnson, and Pettersson. Inexcusable for Letang and Marleau.

• The Penguins DID extend their playoff appearance streak to 14 seasons even with the qualifying round loss, per the new CBA.

"Teams participating in a best-of-five series during the Stanley Cup Qualifiers are considered to have made the postseason and participated in a postseason series."

THEY SAID IT

• Letang, on if the window is closing: "I think we still believe in the core group of this team. I think we have a lot in the tank. We're going to keep playing hard and give everything for the Penguins. I think we have to be better. Like we said, this year we didn't play good enough to win. But we felt comfortable with the group of guys we have."

• Crosby, on if the window is closing: "I think with age, it's a possibility. I think this year, I can only speak personally, obviously I would have liked to have stayed a little bit healthier and play a full season. It's been a tough year and a half not playing a lot of hockey, with a long offseason, only playing 20 games and coming back for a short period, and then having this. So it'd be nice to get into a rhythm, obviously it would have been great to play meaningful games right now. It's a really hard one to evaluate. That's the honest truth as far as trying to break this one down. It's a tough one to evaluate overall."

• Sullivan on evaluating this season in order to move forward: "I haven't even really given it much thought. We just lost the series. It's disappointing. It's emotional. We care. We all care, and so, it's emotional. I just don't know if I'm prepared at this point to answer that with a valid answer. I'm sure we'll all have to go back and look at the experience and try to evaluate it and assess it and see where we go."

THE OTHER SIDE

• Artturi Lehkonen broke the scoreless tie late in the third period.

"That was a good pass from Paul (Byron) behind the net, I just had to tap it in," he said. "Luckily it found the net. I don't know how it got to the middle, but I just gave it to Paul because he was flying there, then he found me in front."

• "Everybody was kind of counting us off," Lehkonen said of the series win. "It feels good to win the series. But it's only one series. We've got to enjoy this for a moment then move on."

THE SCHEDULE

It's over.

The second phase of the draft lottery will take place on Monday at 6 p.m., and the Penguins will now have a 1-in-8 shot at winning the No. 1 overall pick and earning the right to draft Alexis Lafreniere. If they do not win the No. 1 pick, they will automatically have the No. 15 overall pick.

After the lottery, regardless of the outcome, the Penguins get to decide whether to trade their 2020 first-round pick to Minnesota to complete the Jason Zucker trade, or defer and send the 2021 first-round pick over.

Lafreniere plays for Crosby's former team, the QMJHL's Rimouski Oceanic. Rimouski is already teasing on Twitter that on Monday they could be the "official supplier" of the Penguins:

Training camp is scheduled to begin mid-November.

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