Pregame
Same lineup for the Pens as last time out.
The home Lightning are using this lineup for the night, with no Andrei Vasilevskiy available today.
First period
The Lightning get a few rushes early, Tristan Jarry is there. Boko Imama and 6’9” Curtis Douglas have an old school scrap at center ice. Imama knocks Douglas’s helmet off and then scores a knockdown.
Pittsburgh gets the first power play, and then they get the first goal of the game. And to continue the first trend, it’s the first NHL goal for Ville Koivunen. He’s got time to pick the corner and does so, with a nice flyby screen from Anthony Mantha at the last second. 1-0 Pens.
Tampa gets a couple of power plays of their own, Jarry shines. Sidney Crosby gets royally pissed off towards the end of the period when he’s getting crosschecked, so he breaks his stick over the guy to show him what a crosscheck looks like. The refs always only see the second one.
Shots are 15-8 TB, Nikita Kucherov has four of them by his lonesome. Jarry has been up to the challenge and Koivunen’s breakthrough gives the Pens a lead after 20.
Second period
Vintage Geno Malkin in the second to swipe away a pass, take off galloping away the other way to catch up to it. The finish is a beaut with a shoulder shake and sliding the puck in five-hole. 2-0.
Pittsburgh gets a second power play and second power play goal. Ben Kindel deflects an Erik Karlsson point shot. 3-0.
The Lightning are able to get on the board before the end of the period. Great pass by Darren Raddysh to hit Kucherov on the back door for a tap-in. 3-1 game.
Pittsburgh out-shoots Tampa 11-9 in the second period and out-scores them 2-1 in the middle frame to carry a two-goal lead into the third period.
Third period
Kris Letang takes a penalty against an easy-to-fall Jake Guentzel early on and the Lightning make it count. Brandon Hagel shoots from some distance, Jarry has to be mindful of the player to the backdoor, being as TB has been running that all night. But this shot is ticketed to the short-side. 3-2 with still 18:43 to play.
Malkin takes a trip to the box after tripping an opponent. There’s some nervy moments but the Pens kill it off.
But not for long, Tampa is on the rush. They’ve had so many of them that it’s bound to happen that they get a good bounce and they do when a puck goes off Nic Paul’s skate and right to Hagel. He is in free and notches a second goal of the game to tie it 3-3.
Malkin comes through to knock a falling puck down and then get in position for a Tommy Novak pass to sling in. 4-3 the Pens are up and there’s 2:43 to go.
Tampa pulls the goalie and Kucherov answers his countryman. Huge shot, again very high and short-side with only 55 seconds left to play.
But wait, the Situation Room in Toronto rings in to stop the play and see if there was a hand pass in the lead up of play. Erik Karlsson was clearing the puck and Hagel raised his arms to block his body, and it looked like the puck struck it. The puck then went straight to Guentzel, which isn’t a good move. Very ticky tack considering it happened 12 seconds prior to the goal but hey. Big brother was watching on that one, to the Pens’ benefit. No goal, score is back to 4-3.
Jarry stones Kucherov with about seven seconds left and the Pens survive to sneak out with a win.
Some thoughts
- Tampa’s speed was presenting real problems for the Penguins early on. Multiple odd man rushes, partial breakaways. Wasn’t pretty, luckily Jarry was super sharp right off the bat.
- This game had an edge to it. At times it seems like Crosby is almost grandfathered in these days from players that don’t really hound him relentlessly and peel off him after the whistle, especially for non-rivalry teams. There’s a palpable respect from opponents. Tampa didn’t follow that script, they played Crosby extremely hard and right in his face all night long. Nothing wrong with that but it stood out for how aggro they were.
- Let’s all say it again: power play and goaltending. Those are the magic words for the Penguins this season when they’re at their best. On perfect display tonight; Jarry was a monster early to not allow a goal until the 24th shot 39 minutes into the game, after the power play had already struck twice. Yeah he gave up three, but Tampa threw 40 shots and a ton of pressure at him.
- How ‘bout that Koivunen goal? 24 games in the making for him, and hey, sometimes you only need one to get on a roll..
- There’s something about playing @Tampa that brings out the best in Malkin. Maybe it’s the Florida sun. Always an inspired effort, whatever it is. Big two-goal night, looked like old times for him out there to tip the balance of the game for his team.
- It was a big goal to avoid another collapse. You never want to add to the pile of the three-goal leads that have gone down the drain this season. Tampa is good, you’re on the road, but when you’re up by 3-0, that should be a win. Luckily it was tonight.
- That last call was the right one, kinda crazy that Toronto is so involved to see something in that detail with every game to notice a place like that 12 seconds before a goal when the refs on the ice missed it.
- Look at that Kucherov, 10 shots on goal, 18 attempts. And that doesn’t even count the one that got taken away on a technicality. Special player and great performance.
Win is a win, the Pens got enough out of Malkin and their power play and their goalie to get in and out of Tampa to take two points from a team that had won 7/8 games. The road trip has one more stop in Dallas.
