For 56 minutes and 52 seconds, the Penguins could feel good about the way they responded to Saturday’s shutout loss to Ottawa, their worst game in quite a while.
Sunday at PPG Paints Arena, the Penguins through two periods had notched nearly three times as many shots as Jake Guentzel and the visiting Tampa Bay Lightning. They spent twice as much time with the puck in the offensive zone, per Sportlogiq. And the Penguins evened the score with a power-play goal early in the third period.
“Tonight, I think we played better overall than them,” Kris Letang said with a shrug.
But Nikita Kucherov and the Lightning stole the puck and the game away from them when Noel Acciari coughed up the biscuit at their blue line with 3:08 left in the game. The former league MVP made him pay and the Lightning ran away with a 5-2 win.
“It doesn’t take much for them to win games,” Letang said. “You give them a couple chances, and they have so much firepower up front that they get a win like this.”
Kucherov sneaked up behind Acciari as the Penguins tried to exit the zone and get tired bodies off the ice. The fourth-liner flubbed a pass attempt to Erik Karlsson and was helpless as he watched Kucherov intercept it, make a quick U-turn and skate in alone on Tristan Jarry. Bang. In just five seconds, a potential victory slipped away.
“I gave them the game,” Acciari said. “No one to blame but me. We played a really good game. … I think we outplayed them. But they capitalized on the mistake.”
The Penguins in late November and through much of December were able to climb the East standings because they kept finding ways to win games. But in 2025, they are back to finding ways to lose. This was their sixth loss in their last seven games.
Mike Sullivan acknowledged that after they dropped back-to-back game at home.
“It’s unfortunate how the game unraveled there in the last couple minutes because for the majority of the night, we really liked our overall team game,” the coach said.
To start the game, the Penguins had the right kind of response after their no-show against the Senators. They dominated the opening period and got a 1-0 lead when Rickard Rakell scored on a broken play. The Penguins had a 24-9 edge in shots after two periods, but Brandon Hagel and Kucherov beat Jarry in the second period.
Kevin Hayes, who was on the top power play Sunday because Michael Bunting was out of the lineup, tied it up at 2-2 early in the third with a tap-in on Jonas Johansson.
But Kucherov scored with 3:03 left to hand the Penguins their second straight loss. Anthony Cirelli and Nick Paul tacked on late goals to make the score look lopsided.
“They’re two different games,” Sidney Crosby said about the losses. “[Saturday] we didn’t really give ourselves a chance at all. Tonight, I thought we deserved better. But you don’t get points for playing well. You’ve got to find a way to win games.”
