Pregame
Some line tinkering from the last game. Rutger McGroarty is back in the lineup and Ville Koivunen returns from injury. Hendrix Lapierre and Andrei Kuzmenko take a seat to make way. Tommy Novak bumps back to center and Nick Robertson is elevated up a couple rungs. Sergei Murashov gets the start.
The San Jose Sharks are bringing this lineup to the table and match the 22-year old Murashov with a 24-year old Russian starting goalie of their own in Yaroslav Askarov.
First period
Fun start with both teams exchanging scoring chances. Pittsburgh gets the first power play when Evgeni Malkin feeds Rickard Rakell up the middle and Rakell gets tripped. They don’t score on it but the second group plays active hockey in the zone for a minute. The power play expires and a forward peels off to change for Sam Girard to get on the ice for a second defenseman. Malkin spots Girard and bumps the puck over for Girard to lean into a long-range shot. It goes in. 1-0 Pens early.
Game continues along, Malkin gets whistled for hooking with 4:33 to go in the period to get a first look at the San Jose power play. The penalty kill holds up.
Fun period and a good one for the Penguins. Shots are 12-11 SJ, the Pittsburgh power play was the better of each team getting one chance on it, leading to a carryover goal at even strength.
Second period
San Jose starts the period strong, Ben Kindel takes an interference penalty as some rush chances for SJ start to mount. The Pens’ PK kills it off again, Murashov standing tall to take away the top of the net.
As we hit the first TV timeout, shots on goal for the period are 7-0 San Jose. Blake Lizotte did chip an attempt just wide but it’s been few and far between to start the second for the Pens holding pucks anywhere close to the net, and more often than not they don’t hold it anywhere at all.
Pittsburgh gets a shot, though no sustained pressure. A bit of inconsistent officiating has some things not being called, Girard does take a penalty when his holding goes a bit too far. He’s very unhappy and the team at-large looks to be getting frustrated by the refs.
The Sharks get a close call, Macklin Celebrini has a shot from right in front, Murashov makes a huge save. Ivar Stenberg drives to the net, knocks the fluttering puck off the top of the net and bats the puck into the goal with his hand. Officials rule no goal then go to a video review to take another look.
It takes a long time for them to eventually uphold the ruling of no goal. The PK does the work for the rest of the penalty time.
The Pens finally start making a push late in the period and Sidney Crosby draws the second Pittsburgh power play of the game. No dice.
Pittsburgh plays their best part of the period in the last minute or so. Egor Chinakhov and Kindel nearly hook up for a goal. Malkin was skating all over the ice against a tired defense virtually standing still. Clock runs out before there can be a payoff.
Shots in the period are 10-8 San Jose, and it felt more lopsided than that as far as which team was controlling the majority of play. Overall shots are 22-17 SJ. Somehow, the score is only 1-0 after 40 minutes.
Third period
Close call for a possible Penguin goal 20 seconds into the third. Crosby tried to pass it low, ended up hitting the end boards and going into Askarov’s feet as he jammed to the post. Rakell follows up trying to picklestab it in. It’s not clear the whole puck goes all the way over the line so the review comes up confirming the no goal call from the original play.
It’s mostly all Pens early, they draw a power play and score on it this time. Kindel hangs out on the farside as the puck gets worked around, Erik Karlsson hammers one on net, rebound gets to Kindel and he quickly whips it to the top of the net. 2-0 Pens with 16:32 to go.
Celebrini and Kaedan Korczak get tangled up, nearly fight. Korczak takes four minutes worth of penalties to only two for Celebrini. Pittsburgh PK improves to 4/4 on the night.
The Sharks start to fight the clock. Murashov robs Michael Kesselring from right in front on another sterling save, sadly seconds later concedes his first goal. It takes a quick pass and Celebrini double-clutching to change the angle to finally beat Murashov for the first time on the 33rd shot he saw. 2-1 Pens with 8:28 to go.
The Sharks stay after it and tie the game with 4:11 to go. The Pens just can’t get the puck out of the zone and Celebrini makes a play on a hard pass that Mason Marchment just has to hold his hands on the stick to knock the puck in. 2-2.
Regulation ends before anymore mayhem can ensue. Celebrini put his stamp on the game and helps get the Sharks some kind of result after 60 minutes.
Overtime
The Pens own the puck for the first 82 seconds of OT, Askarov stops Crosby and holds the puck to get a whistle and break that flow. They win that faceoff and hog the puck until the Sharks finally touch it with about 2:15 to play.
SJ gets an offensive zone faceoff and they burn their timeout with 2:08 to play to give their best players a rest.
Doesn’t work, the Big Three of the Pens get a 3-on-2 rush. They all touch the puck but the setup doesn’t go. That leads to a Sam Dickinson breakaway, he doesn’t score. The puck goes to the corner, Letang is trying to get a whistle on top of the puck, battling with Dickinson. He gets a penalty for holding the stick of a guy digging the stick into him aggressively. San Jose to a 4v3 power play with 42 seconds to play. They can’t beat the clock.
Shootout
Kindel starts the shootout, drifts to the left wall, cuts back in and snaps a quick, low shot by Askarov. 1-0.
The Sharks waste no time with Celebrini, his shot isn’t on target after Murashov out-waited him.
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Crosby gets the chance to turn the pressure up, his move to the backhand doesn’t quite work.
Stenberg goes next, he’s stopped by Murashov.
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Rakell has the chance to end the game. His high shot is stopped by Askarov.
Will Smith has to score, he can’t beat Murashov low.
Pens survive.
Some thoughts
- The last three games in California were good ones for Evgeni Malkin, six assists for the big guy. Quality stuff for him.
- How’s this for a crazy stat: the Sharks have dressed seven players this season (including five in the game tonight) born after Malkin was drafted by the Pens in 2004.
- Girard scored a goal after not even practicing Tuesday, coming after a day off for the whole team on Monday. That’s usually not a good sign and he’s been likely grinding through a minor injury/issue for a while now. Given the LD situation, it almost goes without saying but this team needs Girard right now in the lineup and they need him to be at his best.
- Really liked how the personnel changes ended up working for the power play. The first group was Crosby, Kindel, Novak, Rakell and Karlsson. Malkin joined Brazeau, Chinakhov, Koivunen and Letang for the second. The first goal was born from power play possession carrying over, the second goal was on the power play. More than that, both groups looked better in the movement of players and the puck. Maybe a base to build upon, if nothing else.
- Erik Karlsson racked up 12 official shot attempts (was even more, one shot/pass tipped on net I noticed didn’t count) coming after 19 shot attempts last game against Anaheim (eight of which were on goal). You can tell he’s making an obvious effort to put that booming shot towards the net at just about every possible opportunity these days. His play on the SJ tying goal wasn’t as lovely.
- Chinakhov was flying all night long. Four SOG, 10 total attempts. His skating was a lot more noticeable to pull up alongside a defenseman’s gap and then beat him with speed around the edge. You get the feeling the offensive breakout is coming at this rate.
- Tip of the cap for Murashov, he was excellent all game long. Had the look of a confident goalie, at times setting up to make saves about a foot in front of the crease. His point blank stop on Celebrini in the second period is a chance from that caliber of player that ends up in the net more often than not. It’s not hard to see how aggressive, active and athletic he is and at times see what looks like a young Marc-Andre Fleury back there. Also like Fleury, if Murashov can make it through the first part and build his confidence, it really shows and usually carries over into a good night. This one was better than good.
- Will Smith’s white skates, in my mind at least, are the spiritual successor for this generation’s Alex Kovalev. Always nice to see a flashy player add another little dash of flair.
- On one hand, another blown lead late in the game. We’ve all seen that before. This one doesn’t hurt as much, Murashov’s brilliance was the only reason Pittsburgh was in position to be up by two goals at any point, it was essentially an even game on the ice and the Pens were winning because of a great performance in net. Just turned out SJ got a great performance by one of the top players in the league to equal it. Sometimes it happens. Wrote this note even before the shootout happened for the record.
- We’ve said simply enough in previous recaps that the key to the shootout, of which the Penguins have struggled so mightily in recent years, would be simply employing better shooters and goaltenders. Kindel is great on them, scored tonight. Murashov’s athleticism and prowess means he should be pretty good too and he was perfect tonight in that regard. Not that complicated, just need the specialized players with those attributes, and the worm might be starting to turn in that department.
- Bob Grove pointed out tonight was the 4,600th regular season game in franchise history. Add up Mario Lemieux, Jaromir Jagr, Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin’s games for Pittsburgh and you get 4,466. Obviously there’s a lot of overlapping tenures there so it’s not like they’ve played in 97% of the total individual games but sometimes you gotta sit back and remember just how much high-level virtuosos we’ve gotten a front row seat to see for all these years.
The Pens go 2-1 in their swing through California and survive tonight to make it a successful trip. Now it’s time to go back to the ‘Burgh, next game coming up on Saturday night.
