PITTSBURGH — Once the Penguins start providing reasons to believe there might still be a Stanley Cup contender in there somewhere, they always deliver a dud like this.
Tuesday night at PPG Paints Arena, they followed up one of their most impressive and emotional wins of the season with one of their worst losses to date.
The lowly Montreal Canadiens arrived here on short rest and a seven-game losing streak. But they beat the Penguins, 6-4, to deny them a third straight win.
Tristan Jarry got pulled again after stopping fewer than half of the shots he faced. The Penguins coughed up a 2-0 lead, rallied back from two down themselves then gave up the winner early in the third period. They gave up a quick response goal and another late in the period. Their breakdowns were massive.
Instead of taking care of business against an inferior opponent and winning for the eighth time in 10 games, they stomped off in frustration after a bad loss.
The Canadiens occupy the Atlantic Division basement. Their latest loss was an 8-4 beatdown at the hands of the Colorado Avalanche a night earlier in Montreal. They did give the Penguins problems earlier this season, twice defeating them in overtime.
Early on, it looked like the hosts would hand the Canadiens another lopsided loss. Jake Guentzel slammed home a rebound goal on the first shift. Then Evgeni Malkin bombed a one-timer behind Sam Montembeault on the power play.
But their lead was gone just 2:24 later. Jeff Petry and Mike Matheson, traded for each other last summer, played prominent roles in the momentum swing.
Petry, trying to do too much against his former team, was off the mark on a stretch pass then got caught out of position when the Canadiens quickly counterattacked. Mike Hoffman got a fantastic feed from Rem Pitlick and beat Jarry.
Moments later, Jesse Ylonen tied it up. Matheson, who made a number of dazzling plays in his Penguins days, spun away from Bryan Rust at the Pittsburgh blue line and slid the puck to Ylonen. His long shot through a crowd went in.
Denis Gurianov flicked a backhand beyond Jarry’s glove to make it three goals on the first five Canadiens shots. Then Jarry and the Penguins gave up another goal late in a period. Joel Edmundson made it 4-2 with 11 seconds left.
Coach Mike Sullivan had seen enough, replacing Jarry with Casey DeSmith for the start of the second. Jarry finished with just three saves on seven shots. The PPG Paints Arena crowd cheered when the goalie switch was announced.
Jarry has now been pulled three times in his last eight starts and has hardly looked like himself since returning from his latest injury. He has posted an abysmal .869 save percentage in 10 starts since returning to the lineup on Feb. 20.
He has lacked, particularly while moving from left to right, those powerful lateral pushes that made him one of the NHL’s better goalies on odd-man rushes. His composure has waxed and waned, as well. Jarry has had difficulty tracking pucks and has lost his bearings on bang-bang plays around his crease.
Jarry was solid in Sunday’s win over the New York Rangers. But he couldn’t make a save two nights later. The guys in front of him did him no favors. They had a few breakdowns and didn’t do a good enough job clearing the net front.
The Penguins cleaned up their play in the second period and continued to pepper Montembeault. They were outshooting the Canadiens, 32-11, through two. They got goals from Kris Letang and Guentzel to even up the score at 4-4.
Letang scored through a screen at 5-on-5. Guentzel got his second of the night on the power play. He bravely buzzed the Canadiens crease as Malkin teed another one up from the right circle. Guentzel tipped that past Montembeault.
Montreal took a 5-4 lead with a goal from fourth-liner Anthony Richard early in the third period. A flat-footed Pierre-Olivier Joseph allowed Justin Barron to slip a long pass behind him to Richard, who skated in alone to score the winner.
The Penguins had ample opportunity in the third but couldn’t bury the equalizer on Montembeault, who made 37 saves. Josh Anderson’s empty-netter sealed it.
ICE CHIPS
— The Penguins lost two defensemen to injury during the game. Petry did not play in the third period. Then Jan Rutta went to the dressing room after blocking a shot with his left knee during the third. The third-pairing defenseman was down in pain for about a minute before his teammates helped him off the ice.
— Petry was on the ice for three of Montreal’s four goals during the first period.
— With his first-period goal, Guentzel notched the 400th points of his career. He hit that milestone in 438 games, fewest of any player from the 2003 draft.
— Jason Zucker’s scoring streak was snapped after four games. He earned himself a glorious scoring chance, splitting the defense with an awesome individual effort in the second period. But Montembeault robbed him with his glove.
— Defenseman Dmitry Kulikov, whom the Penguins acquired before the NHL trade deadline, will be sidelined week to week with a lower-body injury. That opened the door for Joseph to get back into the lineup against his hometown team.
— Forward Ryan Poehling has again been cleared for contact and participated in Tuesday’s full-squad morning skate. But he remains on long-term injured reserve. He has been out since Feb. 11 due to his lingering upper-body injury.
COMING UP
The Penguins are scheduled to practice Wednesday in Cranberry before heading to New York to play two road games in a row against the rival Rangers.
