Monday answers whether Saturday was one bad night in front of Utah's net or the start of a habit. Edmonton put 10 shots on goal from inside 25 feet at five-on-five in the 6-2 loss, and five of them went in. We think it was one bad night, and the season backs us. The catch is that Pittsburgh is about the right team to prove us wrong.
Our recap pinned Saturday on the breakaways, not on Karel Vejmelka. What it left open is whether the leak follows Utah into a game against someone other than Edmonton.
- When and where: 7:00 PM MT Monday at the Delta Center. TV is SN+, TVAS, Mammoth+, Utah16 and SN-PIT. Full schedule.
- Records: Utah is 6-3-0, second in the Central and 2-1-0 at home, coming off the loss. Pittsburgh is 3-5-1, sixth in the Metropolitan, on a three-game losing streak and 1-4-1 on the road.
- Series: First meeting of the season.
- Goals: Utah scores 3.67 a game (7th) and allows 3.00 (14th). Pittsburgh scores 3.11 (16th) and allows 3.56 (26th).
Saturday was a finishing night
Chase Beardsley of The Hockey News called Utah's five-on-five defense on Saturday "some of the laziest we've seen this season" and wrote that "they need to be goldfish again." Forgetting it should be easy, because the season doesn't give them much to remember.
By our count of the NHL's play-by-play, Utah has allowed 65 five-on-five shots on goal from inside 25 feet in nine games, 7.2 a game, and 11 have gone in. Take Saturday out and it's six goals on 55 shots, about 11 percent.
Ten close shots wasn't even Utah's worst night for volume. The Rangers got 11 at five-on-five on Oct. 4 and the Devils got 12 on Oct. 6, and those games cost one goal and two. Edmonton got 10. Half of them went in.
Why Pittsburgh is the test
The Penguins get to the net. They have 94 five-on-five shots on goal from inside 25 feet, 10.4 a game, more than Utah's own 9.6, and they've reached double digits in four of nine games. They finish them, too: 17 goals on those 94, about 18 percent, where Utah has 13 on 86. If Saturday's problem is real, Pittsburgh's forwards are the ones who'll find it.
Everything else says the Penguins are in trouble. They're 1-5-1 since winning their first two, and Monday is the last stop on a four-game road trip that has gone 0-3, including losses in Colorado and Vegas on back-to-back nights by three and four goals. The trouble is mostly at their own end: Pittsburgh has allowed 71 close shots at five-on-five, and 15 went in, about 21 percent.
Penguins coach Dan Muse put it down to consistency after the 6-2 loss in Vegas: "We'll have games and we'll have stretches that I think we're playing the brand of hockey I know we're capable of, but we have to do it on a more consistent basis," he said, per Michelle Crechiolo of PittsburghPenguins.com.
They may have to do it a defenseman short. Samuel Girard (one goal, six assists) left Saturday's game in the second period after he was tripped into the end boards, and Muse had no update on him afterward, per Crechiolo at PittsburghPenguins.com. Egor Chinakhov sat out Saturday with a lower-body injury Muse called day-to-day, per Dan Kingerski of Pittsburgh Hockey Now.
The rest of the card leans Utah
Utah's power play is first in the NHL at 35.3 percent, against a Pittsburgh kill that's 11th at 83.3. Utah's kill is the soft spot, 25th at 73.3 percent, but Pittsburgh's power play is 21st at 17.9 percent and was 0-for-20 until Sidney Crosby deflected in a Tommy Novak shot in Vegas, by the accounts of both PittsburghPenguins.com and Pittsburgh Hockey Now. On faceoffs, Utah wins 52.5 percent (8th) and Pittsburgh 44.9 percent, last in the league.
Crosby comes in one assist from tying Ray Bourque for the most assists with one franchise, per the Penguins' preview of the Vegas game.
Neither team had posted lines or a starting goalie when we wrote this on Sunday, and the Mammoth PR game notes for Monday weren't up yet. Vejmelka has started seven of Utah's nine games and is 5-2-0 with a 2.89 goals-against average and an .879 save percentage. Sebastian Cossa is 1-1-0, 2.94 and .839. Pittsburgh has alternated Arturs Silovs and Sergei Murashov in every game since Oct. 5, and Murashov started Saturday, so our guess, with no report to go on, is Silovs (3-2-0, 3.20, .875) on Monday. Murashov is 0-3-1, 3.50 and .883.
Our pick
Utah 4, Pittsburgh 2. The Penguins will get their looks in close, probably double digits at five-on-five. Utah's goalies have stopped 54 of the 65 five-on-five shots from inside 25 feet they've faced this season, about five in six, and we think whoever starts holds that rate while Utah gets plenty at the other end against a team allowing 3.56 a game at the end of a long trip, with the power play and the faceoff dot in its favor. The recap will count it: Utah's five-on-five shots on goal allowed from inside 25 feet, and how many went in.
We're wrong if Pittsburgh scores three or more five-on-five goals from in close, because two nights like that in a row is a trend.
Tusks up.
Sources: NHL.com standings, team and goalie stats, box scores and play-by-play (shot locations and strength splits are our analysis of the NHL's data, so treat distances as approximate), NHL.com game center, Mammoth PR game notes, PittsburghPenguins.com: Musings after Vegas, PittsburghPenguins.com: game preview at Vegas, Pittsburgh Hockey Now: injury update, Pittsburgh Hockey Now: Penguins Go Bust in Vegas, The Hockey News, our recap of the Oct. 17 game.