Pregame
The Penguins have an opening night looking lineup, sans Connor Dewar and Elmer Soderblom who have already played two preseason games.
The Sabres have a pretty fair roster themselves for this the last day of NHL preseason action.
First period
Egor Chinakhov takes the first penalty of the game, Pittsburgh kills it off and has a fun
Novak-Crosby-Malkin line coming after the PK. It works out, Crosby gets into space and fires a slapshot right under the bar. 1-0.
Not long after that the Pens double their lead. Bryan Rust drives to the net and the puck goes to the mixer out front. Hendrix Lapierre chops at it, no dice. Ville Koivunen gets a hack from in front and it pops into the net. 2-0.
Shots in the first are 11-9 BUF.
Second period
The Penguins appeared to score twice in the second period but both goals got taken away after review from Buffalo challenges. Evgeni Malkin scored but there was goalie interference to wipe it away. Then the first line of Crosby, Robertson and Rakell made a nice play with Rakell scoring but Crosby was offside for the entry.
Bryan Rust pulls up 20 seconds into a shift and leaves the ice and game. The Pens quickly announce he will be out for the rest of the game.
Silovs looks a lot better than his first preseason game, and that combined with the Buffalo review team keeps the score the same in the middle frame. Shots are 20-16 BUF through 40 minutes.
Third period
Malkin takes a penalty, the Sabres get their first goal on the power play on a lateral pass that changes the angle on Silovs enough to beat him.
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The Sabres pull the goalie late and that makes it easy for Nick Robertson to knock in a pass from Rakell to set the final at 3-1.
Some thoughts
- Rust’s status matters more than anything seen this game. Gotta agree with Rod Brind’Amour that the preseason is meaningless and ought to be abolished. The Pens have lost all of Blake Lizotte, Ben Kindel, Justin Brazeau and now maybe Rust over items that didn’t count in front of stands that were 1/5 full at most. What are we even doing here?
- Crosby was perfectly pedestrian in his first preseason game but looked very much like Sidney Crosby today. Take that, father time!
- If I had to choose the players most likely to surprise the average Joe or wildly exceed expectations this season my choices would be Nick Robertson and Declan Carlile. Robertson is just a flat out good little player. Carlile looks like the best parts of Ryan Shea and Parker Wotherspoon with his size, skating and calmness handling the puck.
- Night and day performance for Silovs compared to his first exhibition outing where he gave up seven goals on not very many shots. The rebound issue was better, he looked more engaged and was plenty effective. He’s a goalie with some ups and downs, all signs pointing up going into the regular season after today’s impressive performance. Don’t blame anyone for wondering just exactly what will be next though, given his variability that has been on display in the past week.
- Really liked how Rutger McGroarty played today. Not sure that is going to tip the balance for him actually making the team out of camp, but he looks like he’s ready to play in the NHL when he needs to be called upon. Unfortunately for him, it doesn’t look like that is happening right away.
- Koivunen is a tough player to analyze. There’s something about either his stance or the way he’s hunched over and his skating that makes him look awkward. However, he was effective today. He’s not an aesthetically pleasing player to the eye, relative to the absolute smoothness and way most NHL players naturally carry themselves the way he operates with a hitch in his skating stands out. If he can hack it, he can hack it but there’s something odd in his game. Nice to see him get rewarded at the net with a goal, he did that a lot last year and the pucks weren’t going in. Hopefully that’s a boost to the confidence and can fuel him for this season.
- It almost defies reason but somehow Lapierre only won 2/18 faceoffs today. Crosby only took 17 himself. You won’t see those splits repeated in the next game when it counts.
- Similarly, Korczak and Girard skated over 20 minutes today. Karlsson played less than that. Makes it tough to assign too much value to what it means about the Girard-Korczak paired being labeled the second group. We’ll believe that when it’s seen that they play more than Kris Letang during the season.
And now, it’s time for the season. It was a quick preseason slate but it feels pretty long after seeing Rust join the other players in the injury bay. Hopefully it will be more precautionary than anything else, either way the Pens will have to open the regular season on Wednesday in Philadelphia.
