One of these things was not like the other.
The Pittsburgh Penguins, a fringe postseason contender, with only three wins since the NHL’s holiday break, and the Washington Capitals, tied atop the league standings, renewed arguably the highest-profile rivalry of the salary-cap era on Saturday night. Though Sidney Crosby and Alex Ovechkin are the suns around which their respective franchises revolve, Penguins versus Capitals is about more than their historic captains.
Coming into Saturday night, these franchises were separated by 4 points in the standings — the Penguins at 1,864, the Capitals at 1,860 — since the NHL emerged from its 2004-05 lockout season. Over that span, the Penguins and Capitals have combined to win four titles, with each team having to defeat the other in a second-round showdown on its Cup runs.
The rivalry peaked in the mid-2010s. The Penguins won the Cup in 2016 and 2017, the Capitals in 2018, and Pittsburgh won 10 of 19 playoff games against Washington in those postseasons.
It was the stuff of legend.
Until this season, it’s been mostly downhill for both teams.
The Penguins’ loss to the Capitals in the 2018 playoffs started a postseason dry spell not seen in Pittsburgh since before Crosby arrived in 2005. They’ve gone six seasons without a playoff series victory, missing out on the last two postseasons.
The Capitals also have not won in the playoffs since 2018, though they qualified for the last postseason — albeit with one of the worst goal differentials for a modern-era participant. And they were promptly swept.
Still, that was something to build on, and the Capitals did.
That building continued Saturday at Capital One Arena, where the Capitals downed the Penguins 4-1.
Bryan Rust’s goal on a two-on-one with Crosby added temporary suspense to what was a game the Capitals controlled. Rust’s 19th goal would have served merely as window dressing if not for several strong stops by rookie Joel Blomqvist, who made his first start since replacing former franchise goalie Tristan Jarry on the roster on Thursday.
Blomqvist, with 28 saves, performed well in his ninth NHL appearance — and first since mid-November. He might not have scored a goal and made history as Alex Nedeljkovic did the previous night in Buffalo, but Blomqvist provided a sense of calm that was missing from Jarry’s starts.
Still, spotting a 2-goal lead to one of the league’s finest defensive teams is asking to drop a couple of points. Playing for the second time in as many nights, the Penguins probably needed to keep the score tied, if not take a lead, to have a great chance to leave the nation’s capital with a victory.
They didn’t, and they are now 3-6-3 since a 9-3-1 jaunt that carried them from the bottom of the standings into a wild-card spot in the Eastern Conference. The current struggles haven’t completely erased all the good done by that prior heater, but the Penguins find themselves with a bottom-10 point total heading for a West Coast trip.
The final season of the Brian Burke-Ron Hextall era was disastrous for the Penguins. Still, it’s a move the previous management team didn’t make that too often goes unmentioned among the many oft-discussed mistakes.
In November 2022, the Arizona Coyotes were looking to trade Jakob Chychrun and coach Mike Sullivan pressed Hextall, then the Penguins general manager, to bring Chychrun to Pittsburgh. The Coyotes asking price included first-round picks in the 2025 and 2026 NHL Draft — prompting Hextall to back away from talks.
Sullivan viewed Chychrun as a significant upgrade on defense. The plan would have been to pair Chychrun with Kris Letang to bolster the Penguins’ top pairing for the present and future.
Chychrun was eventually dealt to the Ottawa Senators at the 2023 trade deadline. The Coyotes received a 2023 first-round pick, and second-round picks in 2024 and 2026.
Chychrun hardly flourished with the Senators, who traded him to the Capitals last July for defenseman Nick Jensen and a 2026 third-round pick.
He may not end up as a Norris Trophy finalist, but Chychrun should be in the discussion. The Capitals have unlocked his offensive game, and his 13 goals — including a heavy slapper against the Penguins — have played a pivotal role in their accession to the top of the Eastern Conference.
There’s no way to know if Chychrun would have performed for the Penguins as he has the Capitals. Maybe he flops? Or perhaps he fits like a glove, the Penguins make the 2023 Stanley Cup playoffs, Burke and Hextall keep their jobs, and Erik Karlsson never is acquired from the San Jose Sharks?
The Penguins looked inferior to the Capitals at the start of the game, then they settled after Chychrun’s first-period goal and seemed to carry some momentum into the intermission. Michael Bunting drew a late-period penalty — one of those agitator moves that draws comparisons to Patric Hornqvist — and it felt like the Penguins were in decent shape despite trailing 1-0 after 20 minutes.
The next 20 minutes were a dud.
The Capitals won a majority of puck races and battles. Their simple system — nothing fancy in the neutral zone, just put the puck deep and go get it — was a problem for the Penguins. And their second goal, scored after by Aliaksei Protas — had the feeling of inevitability.
The Penguins played in Buffalo on Friday night. Their slow start in Washington wasn’t unexpected.
That second period? A bucket of yuck in terms of visible emotion and execution.
The penalty kill has faltered of late after spending most of the season firmly as a top-10 unit.
The Penguins had surrendered 9 goals on opponents’ 28 power-play chances in 11 games before Saturday. That’s well below 70 percent, which is at least 10 points behind where a team would like to be in a worst-case scenario.
The Capitals, as dangerous on the power play as any team, scored only once on four opportunities. They needed until the very end of that fourth chance to score, too.
But Pierre-Luc Dubois’ snipe on the advantage late in the third period effectively ended any hope the Penguins had of rallying to earn at least a point.
It’ll be known soon enough if the Penguins’ recent penalty-kill failings were largely due to Jarry’s poor goaltending, or if something systemic has gone afoul.
What’s clear, though, is that without a quick turnaround on the penalty kill, the Penguins are going to miss the playoffs for a third consecutive year.
CONTINUE READING
The Pittsburgh Penguins, a fringe postseason contender, with only three wins since the NHL’s holiday break, and the Washington Capitals, tied atop the league standings, renewed arguably the highest-profile rivalry of the salary-cap era on Saturday night. Though Sidney Crosby and Alex Ovechkin are the suns around which their respective franchises revolve, Penguins versus Capitals is about more than their historic captains.
Coming into Saturday night, these franchises were separated by 4 points in the standings — the Penguins at 1,864, the Capitals at 1,860 — since the NHL emerged from its 2004-05 lockout season. Over that span, the Penguins and Capitals have combined to win four titles, with each team having to defeat the other in a second-round showdown on its Cup runs.
The rivalry peaked in the mid-2010s. The Penguins won the Cup in 2016 and 2017, the Capitals in 2018, and Pittsburgh won 10 of 19 playoff games against Washington in those postseasons.
It was the stuff of legend.
Until this season, it’s been mostly downhill for both teams.
The Penguins’ loss to the Capitals in the 2018 playoffs started a postseason dry spell not seen in Pittsburgh since before Crosby arrived in 2005. They’ve gone six seasons without a playoff series victory, missing out on the last two postseasons.
The Capitals also have not won in the playoffs since 2018, though they qualified for the last postseason — albeit with one of the worst goal differentials for a modern-era participant. And they were promptly swept.
Still, that was something to build on, and the Capitals did.
That building continued Saturday at Capital One Arena, where the Capitals downed the Penguins 4-1.
Bryan Rust’s goal on a two-on-one with Crosby added temporary suspense to what was a game the Capitals controlled. Rust’s 19th goal would have served merely as window dressing if not for several strong stops by rookie Joel Blomqvist, who made his first start since replacing former franchise goalie Tristan Jarry on the roster on Thursday.
Blomqvist, with 28 saves, performed well in his ninth NHL appearance — and first since mid-November. He might not have scored a goal and made history as Alex Nedeljkovic did the previous night in Buffalo, but Blomqvist provided a sense of calm that was missing from Jarry’s starts.
Still, spotting a 2-goal lead to one of the league’s finest defensive teams is asking to drop a couple of points. Playing for the second time in as many nights, the Penguins probably needed to keep the score tied, if not take a lead, to have a great chance to leave the nation’s capital with a victory.
They didn’t, and they are now 3-6-3 since a 9-3-1 jaunt that carried them from the bottom of the standings into a wild-card spot in the Eastern Conference. The current struggles haven’t completely erased all the good done by that prior heater, but the Penguins find themselves with a bottom-10 point total heading for a West Coast trip.
Jakob Chychrun: What if?
The final season of the Brian Burke-Ron Hextall era was disastrous for the Penguins. Still, it’s a move the previous management team didn’t make that too often goes unmentioned among the many oft-discussed mistakes.
In November 2022, the Arizona Coyotes were looking to trade Jakob Chychrun and coach Mike Sullivan pressed Hextall, then the Penguins general manager, to bring Chychrun to Pittsburgh. The Coyotes asking price included first-round picks in the 2025 and 2026 NHL Draft — prompting Hextall to back away from talks.
Sullivan viewed Chychrun as a significant upgrade on defense. The plan would have been to pair Chychrun with Kris Letang to bolster the Penguins’ top pairing for the present and future.
Chychrun was eventually dealt to the Ottawa Senators at the 2023 trade deadline. The Coyotes received a 2023 first-round pick, and second-round picks in 2024 and 2026.
Chychrun hardly flourished with the Senators, who traded him to the Capitals last July for defenseman Nick Jensen and a 2026 third-round pick.
He may not end up as a Norris Trophy finalist, but Chychrun should be in the discussion. The Capitals have unlocked his offensive game, and his 13 goals — including a heavy slapper against the Penguins — have played a pivotal role in their accession to the top of the Eastern Conference.
There’s no way to know if Chychrun would have performed for the Penguins as he has the Capitals. Maybe he flops? Or perhaps he fits like a glove, the Penguins make the 2023 Stanley Cup playoffs, Burke and Hextall keep their jobs, and Erik Karlsson never is acquired from the San Jose Sharks?
Subdued second period
The Penguins looked inferior to the Capitals at the start of the game, then they settled after Chychrun’s first-period goal and seemed to carry some momentum into the intermission. Michael Bunting drew a late-period penalty — one of those agitator moves that draws comparisons to Patric Hornqvist — and it felt like the Penguins were in decent shape despite trailing 1-0 after 20 minutes.
The next 20 minutes were a dud.
The Capitals won a majority of puck races and battles. Their simple system — nothing fancy in the neutral zone, just put the puck deep and go get it — was a problem for the Penguins. And their second goal, scored after by Aliaksei Protas — had the feeling of inevitability.
The Penguins played in Buffalo on Friday night. Their slow start in Washington wasn’t unexpected.
That second period? A bucket of yuck in terms of visible emotion and execution.
PK struggles continue
The penalty kill has faltered of late after spending most of the season firmly as a top-10 unit.
The Penguins had surrendered 9 goals on opponents’ 28 power-play chances in 11 games before Saturday. That’s well below 70 percent, which is at least 10 points behind where a team would like to be in a worst-case scenario.
The Capitals, as dangerous on the power play as any team, scored only once on four opportunities. They needed until the very end of that fourth chance to score, too.
But Pierre-Luc Dubois’ snipe on the advantage late in the third period effectively ended any hope the Penguins had of rallying to earn at least a point.
It’ll be known soon enough if the Penguins’ recent penalty-kill failings were largely due to Jarry’s poor goaltending, or if something systemic has gone afoul.
What’s clear, though, is that without a quick turnaround on the penalty kill, the Penguins are going to miss the playoffs for a third consecutive year.
