Penguins aware penalty kill needs improvement

In a change of pace, the Pittsburgh Penguins’ penalty kill was not a liability Sunday evening against the Tampa Bay Lightning.

That was partly because it didn’t get any opportunities to struggle, as Tampa Bay did not embark on a single 5-on-4 power play in its eventual 5-2 victory.

While short-handed woes weren’t a relevant factor Sunday, the same could not be said of the last two weeks, over which time the penalty kill has remained stuck in a tailspin.

Since Dec. 31, through their last seven games, the Penguins own a 55.5% (10 of 18) kill rate, a 1-3-3 record and have collected only five of a possible 14 points.

Before puck drop Sunday at PPG Paints Arena, coach Mike Sullivan made his thoughts plain on the current effort and effectiveness of his club’s penalty kill.

“The way I would assess it is that it hasn’t been nearly as good as it needs to be, and there’s a lot of reasons for that,” he said. “This conversation, we don’t have enough time for those responses, but a lot of it just boils down to details in all three zones. We haven’t made (opposing power play) entries nearly as difficult because of the lack of detail, the lack of awareness and the same in-zone.

“We’re giving up too much. I think we have opportunities to be way more aggressive than we’ve been. For whatever reason, we’re choosing not to.”

The present penalty-killing issues come as somewhat surprising considering that, for the majority of the year, the Penguins have done well in short-handed scenarios.

From Nov. 19 to Dec. 29, the club posted an 80.7% (42 of 52) kill rate.

Over the first 20 games of the year, it was slightly better, shutting down 49 of 60 (81.6%) opposing power-play tries.

For goalie Tristan Jarry, there has been a correlation in penalty-killing dropoff with the team’s overall performances dating to New Year’s Eve.

“We’ve just got to get back to the things that have been working for us,” Jarry said. “The power play has been doing a great job. They’ve been keeping us in games. But I think we’ve got to get a little bit better on the penalty kill. I think the penalty kill is what kind of helped lead our team, along with the power play, just before that.

“When we’re getting stops like that, it was giving us momentum, and we were getting back to playing in their end. If we can get back to that and just kind of play a good team game — guys are going all out, they’re blocking shots, they’re doing what they have to do — just help in that area will really help our game.”

After Sunday’s loss to Tampa Bay, the Penguins’ penalty kill ranks 15th league-wide at 79.0%.

One excuse for suboptimal results on the penalty kill that can’t be cited is health.

Marcus Pettersson, the Penguins’ leader in short-handed minutes per game (2 minutes, 46 seconds) has been back in the lineup since Dec. 31, when he returned from a stint on injured reserve.

Kris Letang (2:19) and the Penguins’ top two penalty-killing forwards, Noel Acciari (2:32) and Matt Nieto (2:14) also have been fully available for service.

Granted, some new faces continue to be worked in, such as forward Cody Glass, who had negligible short-handed experience before being traded to the Penguins in the offseason, as well as rookie blueliner Owen Pickering.

Regardless of the diagnoses to explain the penalty kill’s dropoff, inside the Penguins locker room, that area of the team’s game has been identified as a problem requiring rectification.

“I think (we’re) just disconnected at times,” Acciari said. “But kind of just got to get back to where we were before the break and kind of work in sync. Be quick. If one goes, we all go and know that and make sure we get the clears when we’re there.”