Crosby and Letang both take ownership of shocking Penguins loss

Crosby eliminated on his 33rd birthday.

HockeyFeed
HockeyFeed
Published 3 years ago
Crosby and Letang both take ownership of shocking Penguins loss
Zuma Press

In case you missed it earlier today, the Pittsburgh Penguins were officially eliminated from post-season contention after losing Game 4 of their best of five series against the underdog Montreal Canadiens. Despite turning to backup goaltender Tristan Jarry to shore up issues in goal, the Penguins simply couldn't muster enough offense to really ever get into the series. As a result, their season is over and all that's left to do now is talk about where things went wrong. And, as is usually the case in Pittsburgh, the postmortem on the season has already begun. 

Captain Sidney Crosby celebrated his 33rd birthday with a humiliating playoff loss to what was seemingly a lesser opponent. "It's a three out of five," Crosby said after the game. "Anything can happen. We did some good things. Did we do enough? No. Give them credit. They played really well."

"Obviously to play as well as we did, to get as many chances as we did and to lose that one, that hurts," Crosby said. "But that happens in the playoffs."

Crosby admitted that his team let off the gas while they had a 3-1 lead in Game 3 and that that blip ultimately cost them the series. "We let them back in it and we give them hope," Crosby said. "We shut them down for the rest of that period, we're probably looking at a totally different situation. It doesn't take much. It's a short series. Things swung in their favor with them being able to come back in the game."

"I thought guys prepared themselves well," defenseman Kris Letang said. "But when the puck dropped, we faced a well-balanced team with a great goaltender that played better than us. I think that's what happened."

For the full video of Crosby and Letang's media availability, click below: