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Penguins coach Dan Bylsma keeps his hair cut fairly short. |
Probably does it because he likes the way it looks.
Or perhaps because it makes it tougher to pull out when he sees his team do some of the things it did in a 5-4 overtime loss on Thursday night to Detroit night at Joe Louis Arena.
The way Daniel Alfredsson scored the winner with 0.4 seconds left in overtime—Penguins goalie Marc-Andre Fleury stopped his shot on an odd-man rush, only to have the puck bounce off teammate Rob Scuderi and into the net—likely would have been enough to convince Bylsma to grab a few handfuls on the flight home.
But while that sequence ended the game, a lot that the Penguins had done earlier put them in a position to lose.
For much of the first 35 minutes, they were sloppy and undisciplined, and took a series of unnecessary penalties that helped the Red Wings build and protect a 2-0 lead.
“We definitely took some unforced penalties and bad penalties,” Scuderi said. “And that puts us behind.”
But as pointless as, say, James Neal’s cross-checking minor at 5:19 of the second or Jussi Jokinen’s blatant cross-check just over five minutes later, appeared to be, it was a minor that the Penguins didn’t believe was a penalty that might have had the biggest impact on the outcome.
The Penguins had rebounded to take a 3-2 lead on two goals by Evgeni Malkin and one by Lee Stempniak in a span of 2:41 late in the second period, and appeared to have the game well under control as it entered the third.
But with the Penguins on a power play and looking to take a two-goal lead, Neal nudged a stick that one of the penalty-killers had lost out of the area where the Penguins were trying to get some puck movement.
No one was trying to pick up the stick when that happened, and Neal definitely did not push it toward the puck, but he was assessed a penalty for interference, anyway.
On the subsequent four-on-four situation, Tomas Tatar pulled the Red Wings even and, with Detroit’s momentum restored, Todd Bertuzzi put the Red Wings back on top when his shot from along the left-wing boards caromed off Penguins defenseman Olli Maatta and into the net.
The Penguins, after playing without discipline or focus for much of the first 30-plus minutes, regained their equilibrium with two goals in 25 seconds.
But the Neal penalty for shooting that loose stick altered the course of the game, and the Penguins failed to capitalize on a five-minute power play that began late in regulation and spilled into overtime.
“We had a five-minute power play late in the game and no matter what the game looks like, you have to find a way to (score then),” Crosby said.
The Penguins didn’t, and paid for it with a point. “Sometimes,” Crosby said, “the game is tough to explain.”
Results:
Flyers 4 Stars 2
Red Wings 5 Penguins 4
Devils 4 Wild 3
Lightning 5 Senators 4
Blue Jackets 3 Canadiens 2
Sharks 3 Ducks 2
Sabres 3 Oilers 1
Coyotes 2 Panthers 1
Kings 2 Capitals 1