Penguins bleed goals again, get lit up by Jets in Alex Nedeljkovic's first start of the season

Matt Vensel / Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

WINNIPEG, Manitoba — Albeit briefly, the story again was who was not in net.

In fact, Tristan Jarry wasn’t even in uniform here as his saga continued Sunday.

That development had social media buzzing about his future with the Penguins, with some fans celebrating and others speculating what might be next for him.

Then the puck dropped at Canada Life Centre and with a 6-3 loss to the Winnipeg Jets came the sobering reminder that it might not matter who is manning the net for the Penguins going forward if they continue to pretend to defend like this.

For the third game in a row, it was a shooting gallery on one of Pittsburgh’s goalies. This time, it was Alex Nedeljkovic, who was shelled for five goals on 36 shots.

“We just unraveled and gave them free looks,” Marcus Pettersson said with a sigh.

Thing is, Nedeljkovic actually played OK in his first start of the season. He kept the Penguins in it for a while. They led 2-0 midway through the game, then everything fell apart. The undefeated Jets pumped five shots past him in the second half.

The Penguins, who were again plagued by defensive breakdowns and lost battles at the net front, have allowed four or more goals in five of their seven games.

Sure, there were a couple of bad bounces in Sunday’s loss. However, the Penguins permitted another 21 shots from the slot. The Jets doubled them up in odd-man rushes, with eight total. And with the Penguins struggling to cleanly exit their zone, the Jets had a whopping 15 scoring chances off of turnovers, per Sportlogiq.

“We’ve got to do a better job of not beating ourselves,” coach Mike Sullivan said. “In certain instances, we implode a little bit. I think that’s the biggest takeaway.”

Sunday afternoon, the latest implosion came midway through the second period.

Pittsburgh pulled ahead 2-0 early in the second, starting with a power-play goal.

Kevin Hayes scored that one, his third goal through seven games. He then pointed emphatically toward Rickard Rakell, who set him up with a slick backdoor pass.

Lars Eller tucked in a rebound behind Jets goalie Eric Comrie a few minutes later.

The game turned when Kyle Connor scored 6-on-5 on a delayed Penguins penalty. That was the first of three Winnipeg goals in a span of 7 minutes, 11 seconds.

“We maybe took a little bit of a breath the last couple of minutes,” Nedeljkovic said. “They’ve got some high-powered offensive guys that can make you pay for it.”

Mark Scheifele whacked in a rebound to tie the score. That was a bad break for the visitors. The puck pinballed off of Nedeljkovic and Ryan Graves right to Scheifele.

Vladislav Namestnikov gave the Jets the lead with 31 seconds left in that period.

Nikolaj Ehlers did most of the work on the go-ahead goal. During 4-on-4 play, he pinched down the wall to prevent Eller from poking the puck past him. Then Ehlers got Matt Grzelcyk to flop onto the ice before sliding it across to Namestnikov.

Sullivan said the Penguins too often burnt themselves by thinking offense first.

“It starts with just the right mindset,” he said. “We’re quick to try to jump on the offense when we don’t have the puck, and we end up putting ourselves and our teammates in tough spots. We’ve got to have more of a mindset of playing defense first and recognizing when we don’t have control or there’s a question of control.”

Eller’s second goal pulled the Penguins back even at 3-3 early in the third period. That goal was an awesome individual effort, with a slim-angle snipe of Comrie.

Alas, that only briefly halted the onslaught. Adam Lowry pounced on a rebound less than three minutes later, then Mason Appleton pushed the Jets’ lead to 5-3.

The Appleton goal was the back breaker. Pettersson turned over the puck trying to make a stretch pass through the neutral zone. The Jets went the other way, and Pettersson accidentally deflected Appleton’s pass between Nedeljkovic’s pads.

Nino Niederreiter added an empty-netter, as the Jets doubled up the Penguins.

The Penguins were trying to regroup after a lifeless loss to the Carolina Hurricanes on Friday. After that game, Eller criticized the team’s energy level and effort. Kris Letang said Pittsburgh simply got outworked in that 4-1 defeat on home ice.

Both Sullivan and captain Sidney Crosby felt the effort level was where it needed to be Sunday. Crosby said the Penguins just have "to find a way to be a bit smarter.”

Said Crosby: “We did some good things. Obviously, we’re just giving too much up. I think we can’t give up what we’re giving up and expect to win consistently.”

Ice chips

• Joel Blomqvist backed up Nedeljkovic on Sunday. That meant Jarry was a healthy scratch. Perhaps attempting to downplay that storyline, Sullivan declined to name his starting goalie prior to the game. The coach almost always will reveal that.

• Heading into Sunday’s matinee, Sullivan blenderized his forward lines. Drew O’Connor was promoted to the top line. Jesse Puljujarvi got a chance to play with Evgeni Malkin. Their third line was Anthony Beauvillier, Eller and Cody Glass.

• Michael Bunting was a healthy scratch. He had just one point in the first six games of the season and did not provide much of a spark in other ways. Bunting also took an accidental but costly double minor during Friday’s loss to the Hurricanes.

• Valtteri Puustinen made his season debut with Bunting sitting in the press box. He played less than 10 minutes, was a minus-1 and didn’t record a shot on goal.

• Ryan Shea got back in the Pittsburgh lineup, replacing Jack St. Ivany on the blue line. He and partner Graves were on the ice for two of Winnipeg’s goals.

• Eller has a team-best four goals on the year, plus two assists in seven games.

• Bryan Rust got banged up trying to score late in the first period and missed two shifts. But he was good to go for the start of the second and finished the game.

• Jets fans chanted “Where is Rutger?” and “Yager’s better” during the third period. That was aimed at Rutger McGroarty, who declined to sign with Winnipeg this offseason. The Penguins sent fellow prospect Brayden Yager to the Jets to acquire McGroarty, who is currently playing for their American Hockey League club.

Stat n’at

2 — Only two teams, Colorado and Nashville, have given up more goals per game.

They said it

“It felt like we were in control when we had that 2-0 lead,” Pettersson said. “On the road, against a good team like that, you just can’t unravel like we did there.”

Coming up

The Penguins flew to Calgary after the game. They will practice there on Monday ahead of Tuesday’s matchup versus the Flames at the Scotiabank Saddledome.