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Sunday, January 23, 2000 By Dave Molinari, Post-Gazette Sports Writer
MONTREAL - Sure, the Penguins have lost six games in a row on the road, but they usually have a reasonable explanation for it.
Sometimes, it's bad breaks. Other times, a hot goalie. Or a brief lapse in judgment. Or questionable officiating. Or a minor breakdown with major repercussions.
Sometimes, all of the above.
The Penguins are pretty good at putting forth reasons for their failure to get points on the road. Probably because they've had so much practice at it.
But the way things are going on the road - including their 4-2 loss to Montreal at the Molson Centre last night - the Penguins figure to run out of excuses long before playing a game for which they actually don't need one.
Their miserable road record - they are 6-17-1 outside of Pittsburgh - makes it clear why they dare not aim for any objective more lofty than simply earning an Eastern Conference playoff berth. And why even that might be beyond their grasp unless they find a way to have something more than leftover meal money to show for road trips.
"Obviously, if we don't get better on the road, we aren't going to be in the playoffs," center Jan Hrdina said.
Good point. Fact is, the Penguins (19-23-3) have slipped into ninth place in the conference, and only the top eight qualify for the postseason.
Give the Penguins this much, at least: They haven't reached the point where they accept losing gracefully.
After last night's game, forward Martin Straka, not a guy generally given to emotional outbursts, sent a half-dozen cups filled with sports drinks flying off a dressing-room table with a blow from his right arm. Straka then reverted to character, apologizing to an onlooker who came within inches of getting drenched.
The Penguins entered the game knowing that Jose Theodore of the Canadiens was the hottest goalie in the league - he started the evening on a 3-0-1 streak, with a .967 save percentage in those games - but still got only 15 shots on him.
Montreal's effective use of the neutral-zone trap deserves at least some of the credit for that, but failing to generate shots has been a chronic problem for the Penguins. They had just 14 in their previous game, a 3-1 victory against St. Louis at Mellon Arena Wednesday.
It's no coincidence that the Penguins played both of those without right winger Jaromir Jagr, who leads the league in points (74) and is second in shots (202) but is nursing an injured stomach muscle.
His spot on the No. 1 line with Straka and Hrdina was taken by Tom Chorske who, truth be told, is just one big game from pulling even with Jagr in the scoring race. Provided Chorske finds time in that one game to score 33 goals and set up 37 others.
"We miss Jagr," Coach Herb Brooks said. "That goes without saying. You don't have to belabor it."
True enough, but the Penguins still turned in an effective, though hardly scintillating, road period during the first 20 minutes, holding Montreal to four shots on goalie Tom Barrasso.
The Canadiens broke the scoreless tie early in the second period when Dainius Zubrus scored during a power play at 2:42. He collected a loose puck at the side of the crease, carried it into the left circle, then turned and threw a shot past Barrasso.
The Penguins countered quickly, getting a man-advantage goal of their own from Rob Brown at 5:50. Theodore failed to cleanly handle a hard shot by Hans Jonsson from the top of the slot, and Brown punched in the rebound before Theodore could cover it.
That goal reaffirmed Brown's value to the Penguins' power play. After failing to score on 27 consecutive tries before he rejoined it Wednesday, the Penguins promptly converted its first two opportunities against St. Louis.
The Penguins scored a power-play goal in just three of the 14 games Brown missed while recovering from the knee injury in a Dec. 15 game at Carolina.
Montreal went back in front to stay at 10:33 of the second, when Patrick Poulin scored from high on the inner edge of the left circle. The puck appeared to hit Barrasso before going past him on the short side.
Poulin's goal was his first in 12 games. His first, coincidentally, since the Penguins' previous visit to the Molson Centre.
Brooks blamed the goal on poor positioning for the faceoff that preceded Poulin's shot but, regardless of what led it to, the impact of that goal was profound.
"At that point, neither team was dominating," Brown said. "It was a good, close hockey game."
It got a little less close at 18:31, when Zubrus got another power-play goal, and Arron Asham eliminated any suspense about the outcome by chipping a rebound past Barrasso at 7:09 of the third.
Hrdina responded for the Penguins 40 second later, courtesy of a nice feed from Chorske, but they were unable to get another goal.
Montreal's victory moved it to within nine points of the Penguins and, while the Canadiens are a long shot to reach the postseason, they're playing well enough to be a factor in the race.
Which is more than anyone could accuse the Penguins of at this point, considering they have lost five of their past six games and six of the past eight.
"We came in and knew Montreal was playing well, that they're fighting to get back into the playoffs," Brown said. "And instead of coming in here and going out and playing 60 solid minutes, we came out here and didn't play well. There's no excuse for that.
"I said at the beginning of the season that, with the way the league's set up this year, with the extra point for losing in overtime, you're going to have to have a lot of points to make the playoffs.
"And you can't give away points on the road to teams that are fighting with you for a playoff spot. We blew two points again tonight. And in the end, it might come back to haunt us."
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