Pregame
The rotations continue for the Penguins, tonight Noel Acciari, Harrison Brunicke and Caleb Jones are back in the lineup and Ben Kindel, Matt Dumba and Connor Clifton take a seat. Arturs Silovs gets the net.
First period
Dreadful start for the Pens, they don’t record a shot on goal before Los Angeles is able to score. Ryan Shea coughs the puck up behind the net and then Kris Letang and Blake Lizotte give minimal effort in stopping Warren Foegele from controlling the puck and getting to the net. Foegele gets a couple of bites at the apple and eventually punches it in past Silovs. 1-0.
Pittsburgh gets to two shots on goal when LA gets their second goal. Anthony Mantha loses the puck and the Kings get going on the rush. Shea lets a pass from Quinton Byfield go right through him and it’s an easy tap in for Kevin Fiala. 2-0.
The Pens finally get going a little bit in the last couple of minutes of the period, but it wasn’t a pretty sight. 11-8 LA are the shots, and 2-0 is the score. Neither seems as close at it looks on the ice.
Second period
The middle frame doesn’t start much better at first, Pittsburgh only musters one shot on goal in the first eight minutes. Tommy Novak draws a penalty and no PKers pressure Evgeni Malkin, so he takes the space they give him and shoots the puck right through Anton Forsberg. A leaky goal to give up, the Pens will take it just the same. 2-1 game.
Then out of no where, the Pens tie it up. Noel Acciari causes some havoc to dispossess a puck, it sits for Connor Dewar close to the net. His shot is low along the ice, for some reason Forsberg doesn’t have the bottom sealed as he leans up to take away the top of the net. 2-2 game out of no where.
The rest of the period features a lot of Penguin turnovers and near chances for the Kings. Byfield could have had a couple with a little better accuracy, including a gift when Sidney Crosby tried to pass up the middle and it got picked off. On another chance Silovs bails the team out with a big stop after Shea gave it up.
Crosby takes an o-zone penalty but the Pens’ PK comes up big with a kill.
Shots in the second are 11-8 LA, just like in the first. Yet it’s Pittsburgh scoring a couple of goals that Forsberg would want back and the game is tied heading into the third.
Third period
Pittsburgh gets their best start of a period in this game, yet still dodge a close call when a Kings’ shot rings off the post. Crosby heads to the box for a second time but the Penguins are the ones who score. Rickard Rakell rings a shot off the post and Filip Hallander follows that up unimpeded by jamming it in from the side of the net for his first career NHL goal. 3-2 Pens lead.
Brunicke and Adrian Kempe get tied up along the wall and start swatting at each other, Kempe goes off for a high-stick with 5:41 to play. LA goes the other way and Silovs makes a big save to hold the lead. The Pens don’t score but two more important minutes disappear off the clock.
The Kings pull Forsberg for the extra attacker, it’s Crosby who seals the deal with an empty net goal. 4-2 Pens victory.
Some thoughts
- Bowling shoe ugly game in the early going. It’s tough for the Pens since they have to work hard for all of their breakouts and are prone to getting trapped in their own end. On the other side, it was much easier for the Kings to exit the zone with control and start their rushes.
- You can see Crosby’s frustrations boiling over. Not much going right at the moment, though hopefully the empty net goal will ease things. More than once he disgustedly threw the puck into space or backwards in the defensive zone, in the third he couldn’t enter the zone with speed. Offensive zone penalty was one of two trips to the box, little offense going with no shot attempts until the ENG and one giveaway on the stat sheet. Crosby was even the rare sub-50% in the faceoff circle winning 7/15 draws.
- In the second period it looked like Parker Wotherspoon put the puck over the glass – it didn’t matter since the Kings were offsides to stop the play. That wasn’t a comforting sight to see after his penalty last game.
- Acciari hasn’t shown much positive in a while, gotta give him credit for today’s game though. He was one of the few players that had their legs going consistently the whole night, was effective on the forecheck and creating the type of stuff that’s going to keep him in the lineup. Acciari’s five shot attempts led the team after two periods, which isn’t a wonderful indicator for everyone else.
- The best case scenario for Kris Letang is the injury he picked up a few days ago is impacting his play. If it’s not, it’s going to be a very long season. Not pretty right now, fortunately Letang and Shea stabilized following a nightmare first period of mistakes that ended up in their net.
- Didn’t think Silovs looked that comfortable and was fighting the puck a ton with some big rebounds, but he was battling and kept the puck out of the net for the last 51 minutes of the game. Silovs also wasn’t the worst goalie on the ice in this game and that helps matters out a lot.
- The Pens’ PK was our pregame focus and they came through in a major way. 2/2 on kills and the first short-handed goal of the season. Great response game for this beleaguered part of the team after the past few performances. LA missed injured captain Anze Kopitar who was out of the lineup and is a central figure on their power play, Pittsburgh still deserves a ton of credit and can look directly at PK success and the SHG as to the major difference maker.
- Malkin’s power play goal was massive, the game might have been at risk of going out of control after LA scored two goals in the first nine minutes and the Pens were struggling to put much positive together. Cutting the lead and breaking the ice there was a huge marker in the big scheme of the game, needless to say if the Kings had scored that fateful “next goal” to extend their lead to 3-0 this game almost certainly would have had a different outcome. They couldn’t find the next goal and Malkin made it happen to continue his very strong start of this campaign.
- Last game’s recap we bemoaned the risk of having skilled players killing penalties when Rakell took a shot off his skates. Tonight was the clear example for how the reward for using good players on the PK can pay off. Rakell did well skating a puck for a 2-on-1 and starting the sequence for a goal.
- The Kings hit posts/crossbars three different times scoring no goals from those close calls. Always helps to get a little puck luck along the way.
It wasn’t the prettiest or smoothest of games, but the result was a positive one. The Pens pull to 1-1 on their California swing with the opportunity to make it a successful trip in the third and final leg up in San Jose on Saturday night.
