Sidney Crosby shook his head.
Following the Pittsburgh Penguins’ squalid 6-5 overtime loss to the San Jose Sharks at PPG Paints Arena — in which the home team fell despite holding a four-goal lead midway through the third period — the Penguins’ captain was asked if he could explain such a collapse.
“I mean, how do you?” Crosby asked rhetorically. “Really? I don’t think you can really.”
There probably are plenty of terms — many of the four-letter variety — that could be used to label this humiliating defeat, which extended a losing streak to four games (0-2-2).
But it might be hard to describe it as unique.
That’s to say it was the Penguins’ seventh loss this season in which they held a lead in the third period.
A goal by Sharks forward Tyler Toffoli tied the game at 18:22 of the third period. That set the stage for defenseman John Klingberg’s winning goal at 2:57 of overtime.
In total, the Sharks scored twice in the final 2:28 of regulation with an extra attacker after pulling rookie goaltender Yaroslav Askarov.
A similar scene unfolded on Tuesday during a 4-3 home shootout loss to the Anaheim Ducks when the visitors pulled their goaltender and scored a short-handed goal with one-tenth of a second left in regulation to force overtime.
“We’ve got to be better there in terms of structurally, the detail behind it,” Penguins coach Dan Muse said of his team’s methods in defending opponents with a pulled goaltender. “They have an extra attacker, but you can definitely limit the types of chances that you’re giving them.
“We have to be better.”
Another area in need of improvement is not giving up a quartet of goals in the final 12:27 of regulation, as occurred on Saturday.
“There’s a lot more inappropriate words for how this game unfolded,” Penguins defenseman Erik Karlsson said. “We play an unbelievable game up until 15 minutes left or so in the third (period). Then we start going through the motions, trying to kill time, and this league is too good for that, no matter who you play.
“We paid for it today.”
The result was taxing on Penguins rookie goaltender Arturs Silovs who stopped 26 of 32 shots and saw his record fall to 4-4-6. He has lost six consecutive games (0-2-4).
“It’s not the best feeling,” Silovs said. “I just have to keep going.”
Toffoli got things going with his eighth goal of the season 10:27 into regulation.
After that, the Penguins scored the next five goals. In particular, they found a way to generate three goals on five power-play chances.
Crosby’s team-best 19th goal came at 12:41 of the first period during a power-play sequence.
That was followed in the second period by forwards Rutger McGroarty (his first at the 19-second mark), Kevin Hayes (his third at 9:42) and Bryan Rust (his 10th at 19:53).
Following Anthony Mantha’s 10th goal during another power-play scenario at 5:25 of the third period, things looked comfortable for the Penguins.
The Sharks had other ideas.
Klingberg scored his sixth goal of the season on a power-play sequence at 7:33 of the third. That was followed by forward William Eklund’s eighth goal at 14:19.
After Rust hit a post on an empty net at the 17:11 mark, Sharks forward Macklin Celebrini found his 16th goal only 12 seconds later. That prompted the Penguins to call a timeout to cauterize the bleeding.
But that tactic did little to stymie the determined Sharks as Toffoli struck again by cleaning up a rebound off a goalmouth scramble.
In overtime, Klingberg deked past Crosby in the Penguins’ zone and converted on a give-and-go sequence with Celebrini.
“We’ve just got to be better with their goalie pulled,” Crosby said. “We’ve got to close out games. There’s lots of ways to do that. We’ve got to be better there.”
This defeat came one day after the Penguins dealt away former starting goaltender Tristan Jarry to the Edmonton Oilers. Following the transaction, Penguins president of hockey operations Kyle Dubas stated the team was capable of better performances.
It’s hard to envision any poorer performance than what the Penguins offered Saturday.
“We’ve got to find a way to be consistent,” Crosby said. “I agree with (Dubas). We’ve done a lot of good things here in the first 30 games. We’ve got to find a way to close out games.”