Written by Jason Mackey at Pittsburgh Post Gazette.com
Marc-Andre Fleury played the part of easy target after the Penguins’ 5-1 loss to the Senators in Game 3 of the Eastern Conference final on Wednesday at Canadian Tire Centre, allowing four goals on the first nine shots he faced.
Accurate? Yeah, right. Just ask Matt Cullen, who was fairly steaming after this one.
“We played like [expletive],” Cullen said. “No excuses. That’s the bottom line. We didn’t battle. We didn’t work as hard as we needed to. It’s the conference finals. To have that kind of effort is pretty tough to stomach.”
The effort Cullen mentioned prohibited the Penguins from penetrating the Senators’ defensive structure enough to generate more than 26 shots on goal and make goaltender Craig Anderson’s life miserable.
Another playoff game, more missing offense. The Penguins have now scored two or fewer goals in seven of their past eight.
“Flower has carried us here,” Cullen said. “He’s played so well for us. That makes it even worse that we kind of hung him out to dry. Bottom line is we didn’t play well. We have to figure it out here as a group. We have to understand that it’s not going to be easy. We have to put our best effort out there. We have to win battles. We have to fight a little bit. We didn’t tonight.”
Four of the Penguins’ top-six forwards have struggled to score of late.
Sidney Crosby’s third period goal snapped a seven-game goal-less stretch for him. An encouraging sign but not enough. Conor Sheary hasn’t scored in 14, Chris Kunitz 10 and Jake Guentzel four. Hardly ideal production from four of your top six forwards.
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