Pens "Mediocre" in 4-1 Loss to Admirals

A frustrating loss for the Penguins tonight as they fall 4-1 to Norfolk. With several teams fighting for the post season, every game counts and mistakes become magnified.

However, tonight wasn't a lack of effort on the home team's part. Simply put by head coach John Hynes,"It wasn't enough, but it wasn't something where you're upset about it."

Obviously the Penguins aren't happy with the result tonight, but the message going forward seems to be continue to stick to the system, out-work/out-compete the opposition and finish on the scoring opportunities that present themselves throughout the course of a game. Tonight, the Penguins did most of those things, except for well the last part.

Alex Grant brought the Penguins within one goal 13:13 into the 2nd period, taking a pass from Chad Kolarik and beating Frederick Andersen top shelf to the glove side. At 2-1, the Pens were very much in the game at that point.

"It's obviously not the way we wanted to come out," said Alex Grant. "We cut the deficit in half in the 2nd and then ran into penalty trouble."

A missed power play chance right after the Grant goal, coupled with two Penguin penalties, quickly shifted the momentum back into Norfolk's favor. Patrick Maroon scored just after the two man advantage had expired. Devonte Smith-Pelly found the back of the net 98 seconds later to swing the game to a 4-1 score late in the 2nd period.

Not easy to swallow for the fans, but I'll leave you with this from Alex Grant.

"We know we can do it in here. We still have lots of belief in ourselves we just need to come to the rink ready to play every night. If we work hard and out compete teams, the majority of the time we are going to win the game."

ROSTER NOTES

With Trevor Smith still on recall to Pittsburgh, the Penguins lineup looked a little different tonight.

Healthy Scratches: Clark Seymour, Cody Wild and Christian Minella
Injured List: Tom Kuhnhackl and Phil Dupuis

Lines:

Holzapfel - Gibbons - Kolarik
Collins - Megna - Thompson
Payerl - Peters - Uher
Farnham - Sill - MacIntyre

Reese - Dumoulin
Mormina - Grant
Morrow - Samuelsson