The Pittsburgh Penguins started their 2024-25 season the worst way Wednesday night. After all of their Home Opener celebrations at PPG Paints Arena were over, the Penguins were immediately blitzed by the New York Rangers for three goals in the first period.
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However, New York didn’t stop there, as the 2023 Presidents’ Trophy winners continued their onslaught, finishing the night 6-0 winners.
Igor Shesterkin, New York’s All-Star netminder who reportedly turned down the richest goaltending contract in league history earlier this week, stopped all 29 shots the Penguins fired at him. In comparison, Pittsburgh’s Tristan Jarry gave up six goals on 41 shots.
The Rangers quickly bested Jarry, scoring the game’s first goal just 2:24 into the first frame. Sam Carrick deflected a Jacob Trouba point shot past Jarry, who may have only been starting Pittsburgh’s first game due to the team’s other netminder, Alex Nedeljkovic, suffering a preseason lower-body injury.
Jarry was then beaten twice within the final three minutes of the first by Alexis Lafreniere and Chris Kreider. New York finished the game with a 34-29 advantage in five-on-five scoring chances and a 20-11 advantage in five-on-five high-danger chances.
With their goaltender laying an early egg, the Penguins could not recover. Pittsburgh only recorded five high-danger chances in the second and third periods combined. The last time before this one the Penguins were shut out in a season opener was a 3-0 road loss to the Dallas Stars on October 8, 2015.
“I think if I make a save on that second one, I think it at least helps guys stay in it,” Jarry told NHL.com’s Brandon Karafilis postgame. “It is disappointing, we had a long offseason. It wasn’t really the offseason we wanted, we were so close to making it last year, and it’s a new year. I think just being able to start on the right foot would have really helped us. But we have to work a little harder, I have to work a little harder myself, and I think that we’ll be better for it.”
While Jarry’s performance was subpar, he didn’t get much help from the players in front of him. The team’s stars, including Sidney Crosby, Evgeni Malkin, Kris Letang, and Erik Karlsson, combined for a plus-minus of minus-9.
Every Penguins player was on the ice for at least one goal against, and just two Penguins, Rickard Rakell and Jesse Puljujarvi, finished with positive game scores. Pittsburgh also got nothing from top prospect Rutger McGroarty, who made his NHL debut in the loss.
“We just didn’t execute,” head coach Mike Sullivan said. “We’ve got to do a better job with some of our decision-making. We’ve got to execute better just as far as passing, receiving, moving the puck, things of that nature. When they’re going, those things seem to fall into place. And I just think it was symptomatic of our game.
“I thought from a process standpoint, for much of the first period, we really liked what we saw. We gave up a couple of goals, and then whatever it was – that two, three-minute span – and we just didn’t seem to bounce back from that. That’s maybe that’s the lesson in it, is we’ve got to find some resilience, and we’ve got to try to grab ahold of it and climb back into it. But, it seemed to unravel from there.”
Goals from Filip Chytil, Kreider, and Vincent Trocheck over the final two periods wrapped up the big win for the traveling Rangers. New York won the Metropolitan Division last season and then advanced to the Eastern Conference Finals, where they fell in six games to the Florida Panthers.
Pittsburgh finished fifth in the Metro last year, losing out on the final playoff spot to the Washington Capitals. The Penguins have not been to the postseason for two consecutive years and didn’t get a great start on preventing a third-straight failure during the 2024-25 campaign despite making several offseason changes to their roster.
McGroarty, Kevin Hayes, Cody Glass, Anthony Beauvillier, and Matt Grzelcyk were all added over the summer and played in Wednesday’s loss. Pittsburgh also hired David Quinn as an assistant on Sullivan’s staff after firing Todd Reirden last May.
“We got behind and chased the game, Sidney Crosby told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette’s Matt Vensel. “We didn’t find a way to stick with our game. We tried to get it all back at once. We found out the hard way.
“A lot of lessons in this one. Don’t have a lot of time to think about it. We need to worry about [Thursday], focus there and hopefully be a lot better.”
The Penguins departed their home rink shortly after the final horn as they will complete the second half of a back-to-back against the Detroit Red Wings on Thursday night. With Jarry taking the heavy loss on Wednesday, the team’s third goaltender, Joel Blomqvist, should get the nod against the Red Wings.
