Panthers give Cooper Black nothing in a 4-0 loss at Pittsburgh

Penguins 4, Panthers 0. Cooper Black got a real NHL debut, and the team in front of him didn't give him a single goal to work with.

The kid made NHL history just by stepping on the ice in Pittsburgh, and Florida spent the next 60 minutes chasing possession on the second night of a back-to-back.

How it went

Black, the tallest goalie ever to play an NHL regular-season game, stopped the first seven shots he saw. Pittsburgh finally broke through at 15:19 of the first period when Nick Robertson beat him with a wrister, with Connor Dewar and Kris Letang picking up the assists.

Hendrix Lapierre made it 2-0 at 9:59 of the second. Evgeni Malkin buried the one that ended it 1:40 into the third, and Robertson added an empty-netter at 17:34 for his second goal of the night.

Florida had legitimate opportunities to get back into it, including four straight minutes after Arturs Silovs high-sticked Sam Bennett late in the second. Nothing went in. Silovs stopped all 26 shots for his second shutout of the season, the first time the cats have been blanked this year.

Three things from Pittsburgh:

1. The power play lost this game. Florida went zero for four with six power-play shots on Silovs, and the double minor while trailing 2-0 was the whole night. When you get four minutes against a team that lost four straight coming in, you have to make them feel it, and Florida made them feel nothing.

2. Reinhart was the forward who wanted it. He fired six shots in 20:29, which is 4:35 more ice than he got in Ottawa the night before, per NHL data, and he used every available second of it. Bennett added four shots. Neither found the net, but those two at least made Silovs earn the shutout.

3. Hits aren't possession. Florida outhit Pittsburgh 32-10, with Garnet Hathaway throwing six and Brady Tkachuk and Bokondji Imama five apiece. The same team coughed up 23 giveaways to Pittsburgh's 15 and lost the faceoff battle 34-28. When you're hitting that much, you usually don't have the puck.

Ferda play of the night:

Anton Lundell, late in the first. Down 1-0 with Pittsburgh pressing for a second goal, Lundell got in front of two Penguins shots seven seconds apart, at 16:31 and 16:38. It was a rough night for him otherwise at minus-3, but that shift is still the job when the other team smells blood.

What they said

"Very difficult to win hockey games in this league when your team scores zero in front of you and gets what it deserves," Maurice said of Black's night. "I was fine with him for his first game."

"It's very frustrating to have a back-to-back quick turnaround like this and lay an egg like we did tonight," Matthew Tkachuk said.

Pabs' read

Maurice has it right: don't put this one on the goalie. Black faced 20 shots, made 17 saves, and kept them competitive through 40 minutes. A team that can't score once in 60 minutes doesn't get to hang a loss on a debut.

With Jacob Markstrom out with a shoulder injury, Black and Akira Schmid are holding the crease for a while, and the skaters owe both of them considerably more support than this.

Matthew Tkachuk's point streak ended at nine games, by our count, and Brady Tkachuk and Seth Jones each saw five-game runs end too. Two games, one goal, and the top of the lineup disappeared simultaneously.

I've watched this franchise survive entire seasons worse than two bad nights in October. But getting outscored 9-1 over two games is a message, and Tkachuk sounds like the room already heard it.

Next game

Florida (5-4-2) visits Chicago on Sunday at 3 p.m. ET on Scripps, then heads to Winnipeg on Tuesday. Sunday's game page has the matchup.