Canadian 2 – Penguins 3 | Good and bad before leaving

(Pittsburgh) Last December 13, during the visit of the Penguins, the task of facing Sidney Crosby was entrusted to Mike Matheson and David Savard. Kaiden Guhle had only crossed Crosby for 76 seconds, and that was enough for Crosby to steal the puck from the young defenseman and score.

Fast forward six weeks. The young defender and the legendary forward 15 years his senior met on the ice at PPG Paints Arena. Like in Montreal, Crosby found a way to hurt Guhle. And like in Montreal, the Penguins came away with the victory, this time 3-2 in overtime.

Except that the famous progression, the measuring stick of the Hughes-Gorton regime while waiting for points and victories, was obvious.

“He was fantastic,” said Matheson, his partner for the evening. “He did that well. He plays big minutes against big trios. He might as well get used to it, because he will do it for a long time! », Added Habs captain Nick Suzuki.

It was a progression firstly because this time, Guhle was matched against Crosby all night, and not for a shift or two, by accident. If Crosby was able to set up a goal at the expense of his rival, Guhle himself scored one at the start of the match. Basically, Crosby simply balanced the accounts.

And the goal that Crosby prepared? You probably saw it in our video summary of the meeting. Here it is from a new angle.

“It looks like Sid has eyes all the way around his head. I don’t know how he knew there was a player there,” marveled Mike Sullivan, head coach of the Penguins, at a press briefing.

“There’s not much to say to him about this goal, because there’s not much he could do! », Estimated Matheson.

Evgeni Malkin is less spoiled in terms of quality of wingers these days (with Drew O’Connor and Colin White), but Crosby remains paired with Jake Guentzel and Bryan Rust, the club’s two best wingers, which makes any confrontation with the 87 all the more complicated.

“There’s always someone hiding near the post behind you, so it’s difficult for the goalkeeper and defenders to defend,” analyzed goalkeeper Jake Allen. As a goalie, you have to respect the shot option and hope he doesn’t make that play.”

This time, Crosby nailed it. But overall, Guhle delivered another assured performance. Performance that he again offered on the right, his opposite side. Saturday’s match was his 27^e right in the NHL, according to the NASA-worthy file maintained by The Press. And it hardly showed.

Guhle even allowed himself to upset his rival at times. On a play in the first period, he almost received a skate from Crosby in the face. “At the time, I didn’t even know that his skate had touched me! “, he said in the locker room, visibly not shaken by his fear.

His record reads -1, because a lucky jump also allowed Lars Eller to score when he was on the ice.

The worst

The CH players are going on vacation for the week and Guhle will be able to do so with a feeling of accomplishment.

Ditto for Juraj Slafkovsky, another youngster who has progressed at an interesting pace in recent weeks. The trio he formed with Sean Monahan and Joel Armia was the one that generated the most threats for the visitors.

But these individual progressions cannot hide the other projects of the Habs, the aspects where you need rose-colored glasses like Elton John would have worn in his younger days to see the positive.

Defensively, the boat continues to take on water. Since Christmas, the team is taking just 25.6 shots per game, and allowing 34.8. Montreal is 31^e in the NHL in this regard during this period, followed only by the Sharks. And being second to last ahead of only San José is equivalent to being last, as we all know.

The management of advances also poses a problem. On paper, CH’s 12-0-2 record, in matches where it leads after 40 minutes, looks good. Except that among the 12 victories, four were won in more than 60 minutes. In other words, the opponent still created a tie and snatched a point. On Saturday, Pittsburgh not only tied the game, but also picked up the second point.

St-Louis wasn’t in a very talkative mood after the game, and was content to say that his team “does a not-so-worse job” of protecting leads.

Guhle offered more realism. “We did a lot of good things. We just have to make sure we keep our lead when we have it in third. Personally, I could avoid a few turnovers. »

Guhle accepted part of the blame as a good teammate, but this work mainly belongs to the coaches, who will have a week to stock up on energy and solutions. They will need it all the more as they could very well lose some experienced soldiers in the transaction market by early March.

Note: After the match, the Canadian gave forward Lucas Condotta to the Laval Rocket. The Canadian is now taking advantage of a week off and will play his next match on February 6.