The Tartan

By Brett Czarniak

Through the fog of a dark and dreary night, I stagger slowly back to my Fifth and Clyde room, a broken shell of a man. My roommate Jack looks on apologetically. “It’s only the first game, right?” I turn away. He could never understand. “Aren’t there like, 81 more games?” I pause. That’s quite rational actually, but no, Jack. I am a war veteran marked by the scars of six Ranger goals, traumatized by Bud Light-wielding Rangers fans chanting their goal song so obnoxiously that they probably heard it back at Madison Square Garden. No Jack, no amount of reason can ease the pain, can quell the flow of my tears, can breathe life back into my soul. Nothing will be the same. 

You think I’m being dramatic? Let me set the scene for you. Jeff Jimmerson just serenaded a packed house, the Big Three (Malkin, Letang, and Crosby) get huge introductions for their now 18th season together, we’re in the middle of Iceburgh’s first “Let’s go Pens!” and you want to know what happens? A shot-tip deflection by Sam Carrick, the literal first Ranger shot, gets behind Tristan Jarry (we could complain about him a lot, but he had no chance here) in no more than two and a half minutes. 

It’s a bit of a buzzkill. Not partying hard. Well, clear your mind. It’s an early goal and besides, in the following 10 minutes the Penguins would get their act together and, yes, play competently. We were — get this — in their end, creating scoring opportunities. Imagine! Oh, what I would give to go back. Alas, the joy we received from this brief display promptly died when Alexis Lafreniere toe-dragged Marcus Petterson back to Sweden and snapped it five-hole to make it 2–0. It was a beautiful goal, I can’t lie, but question: Marcus, why were you laying out on a two-on-two? Marcus, why’d you go flying Dutchman on us when, evidently, there was no pass? 

I needed to cleanse my palate, to remove myself from the flying squirrels of the Penguins defense, so the next thing that happened was my chicken tender purchase. This was really a two-fold highlight; for one, the chicken tenders were tender, which (as anyone who has been to PPG Paints Arena would know) stands in stark contrast with last year’s brick chicken, and two, I didn’t have to watch Chris Kreider of the Rangers make it 3–0 with like 10 seconds left! And I still haven’t, so wins all around for me, I’d say!

While there were perhaps a couple of moments where the Penguins pushed back, the game effectively ended here. The crowd was deflated and no ruckus could be reinstated. I mean, there wasn’t exactly anything to cheer about so you can’t blame them. At a certain point, partaking in the jumbotron’s “Get loud!” prompts felt more like a mockery than anything. Get loud for a 3–0 deficit promptly becoming 4–0? That’s a tall order for anyone, let alone a Penguins team who was, quite literally, falling flat. I think I watched Ryan Graves take a seat like five times.

The second part of the game was like the first but like two times worse, and I’m still questioning why I decided to stay through it all. If I could’ve just gotten over the fact that I spent my hard-earned Capital One rewards points to see this dumpster fire (I’ll never forgive them for this), I could’ve ended my suffering sooner. The absolute cherry on top was Chris Kreider scoring a shorthanded goal late in the 3rd, giving me flashbacks to last year’s counterproductive, giving-up-goals-on-the-power-play approach. I do not like this approach. 

At the time of writing this (call it a blowout hangover), Mike Sullivan has said in his post-game interview that it’s “premature at this point to overreact,” and he might be right, but boy, are we going to pretend whatever happened last night didn’t happen? You just need some “minor adjustments” to not get smacked silly? Don’t gaslight me Sully, I know what I saw. 

We’d all like to think, optimistically, that the new guys and new assistant coach David Quinn can patch up the power-play, that Jarry can get back to All-Star form, that the team can avoid giving up odd-man rushes, but last year’s plagues were very evident yesterday. The defense was swiss cheese with Letang and Graves as constant liabilities, Jarry’s performance was borderline indefensible, and a semblance of chemistry has yet to be found. I would say the silver lining is that they started making crisper passes, but passes are typically not supposed to be to the other team. 

Well boys, it was a tough go for a season and home opener. To say there weren’t moments, and by moments I mean entire periods, where I wanted to gauge my eyes out would be a lie. Please don’t play eye gauge-inducing hockey all year, fellas. I know you can’t win ’em all, but you could at least try next time.