3 Takeaways From Penguins Victory Over Senators at Kraft Hockeyville
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The calendar may read September 2024, but on Sunday night, the Pittsburgh Penguins were playing like it was 2017 all over again.
As the team headed to Sudbury, ON, to celebrate Kraft Hockeyville, the Penguins defeated the Ottawa Senators 5-2 thanks to a hat trick from Evgeni Malkin and two goals from Sidney Crosby.
In their first pre-season contest loaded with an NHL-ready lineup, the Penguins started slow but rallied to score the game’s final four goals to pick up a big win at the 73-year-old Sudbury Community Arena.
Here are a couple of talking points regarding the convincing win.
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Tristan Jarry Needs More Reps to Avoid Stumbling Out of the Gate
If Penguins fans want to begin the 2024-25 season with a glass-half-empty mentality, they would want to believe that Tristan Jarry will return to form and lead the club back to the playoffs.
However, it was evident through the first period that he may not be ready for opening night. Besides giving up two goals, both on the blocker side, he stumbled through his start.
Whether making the first save or getting cleanly beat only for the post to bail him out, Jarry kept flip-flopping on the ice, even losing his stick for a brief sequence.
Ultimately, it was not a brilliant performance for the veteran netminder, who is penciled in to be Pittsburgh’s 1A when the games start to count.
Some people will call it rust because he has yet to face NHL-caliber opponents. However, no matter how we examine the situation, based on his shaky performance, there is a chance that the Penguins could have dropped this game if he had stayed between the pipes, wasting the performances of Malkin and Crosby.
Pittsburgh has four games left in the pre-season, and Jarry needs more reps. Otherwise, the leash will be relatively short for the goalie and head coach, Mike Sullivan, who can’t afford to let his top netminder stumble out of the gate.
Pre-Season Penalty Troubles Must End Now
On Sunday, the Penguins deployed a lineup loaded…
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