Tim Benz: Nothing was working for the Penguins in their season opener

With Pittsburgh Steelers players Najee Harris and Pat Freiermuth in attendance at PPG Paints Arena, the Penguins had more of a George Pickens kind of night in their season opener.

Their net was “Open (Bleepin’) Always.”

The Penguins lost 6-0 at home to the New York Rangers in their first game of the year at PPG Paints Arena. The only question by the end of the game was if the Rangers would go for the two-point conversion to run up the score.

Mercifully, they did not. It’s nice to see good sportsmanship still has a place in the NHL.

“We just got down and tried to take chances to get back in the game,” captain Sidney Crosby said after the loss. “They are a team that if you take chances and give them those looks, they are going to put them in. We got behind and chased the game.”

If you are an optimist, you could say, “Well, it’s just the first of 82.” If you are a pessimist, you could say, “Dear Lord, they really have 81 more of these to go?”

This team spent much of the offseason spitting forth quotes about why things would be different this year after missing the playoffs each of the past two seasons. But, man, it didn’t look like they were listening to their own pep talks.

The Pens couldn’t finish on any of their 29 shots on goal (or 63 shot attempts). They allowed 41 shots on goal. They were minus-3 in the faceoff circle. Every player in a Penguins uniform was at least a minus-1.

There were bad decisions with the puck, leading to multiple odd-man chances and breakaways. While Tristan Jarry got no support, he was once again the second-best goalie on the ice allowing six goals while Igor Shesterkin allowed none in the Rangers net.

“It’s tough. The Rangers are a good team,” Jarry said. “They play well structurally. They have a good group from start to finish. It’s (about) coming out strong, having a good game, and tightening our systems up.”

Then there was the power play. The “Awful (Bleepin’) Always” power play.

It clicked at a putrid 15.27% rate last year, 30th in the league. For all the talk about attempting to make the power play better this year, there is little evidence to suggest that progress has been made. It was 0 for 3 and allowed a shorthanded goal on night No. 1 of the season. That’s after being tied for an NHL-worst 12 short-handed-goals allowed in 2023-24.

“Tonight the whole game goes wrong,” forward Evgeni Malkin said. “We need to play quicker. We need to play smarter. Everything worked in the preseason (on the power play). We scored a couple of goals. We moved the puck quickly. … We know the pressure. Corners. Behind the night. Support each other. We know everything. But tonight was not our night.”

Whatever Malkin thinks looked good in training camp and the preseason didn’t manifest Wednesday. The fans of PPG Paints Arena resorted to last fall’s tactics of chanting “Fire Canada” as a way to amuse themselves during the game.

As bad as the power play was on opening night, if you had told me that Matt Canada was in charge of running it, I would’ve believed you.

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After the game, I asked head coach Mike Sullivan if he thought the problem was with how the team was setting up in the offensive zone structurally, or if he was more concerned with the puck decisions that were made once the flow of the power plays got going.

“It was a little bit of both,” Sullivan said. “We just didn’t execute. We struggled making tape-to-tape passes. The passes that were tape-to-tape seemed to blow up on our stick. We had a couple of looks with some opportunities in that bumper position where guys had lots of time and space, and we just didn’t execute on them.”

A heavy fog rolled over the rivers in Downtown Pittsburgh on Thursday morning. Unfortunately, the Penguins skated in one to open their season Wednesday night. They better shake it off in Detroit for Game 2 after a quick turnaround Thursday night.

As the Penguins have learned the hard way the past two years, giving away points in October can burn you in April.

Simply being competitive before losing them would be a step forward after that display in the opener.