Penguins/Canadiens Recap: Pens down Montreal in back-and-forth game

The Pens and Habs each go on big runs, but a quality third period lifts Pittsburgh to a 6-3 victory on the road

Pregame

The Penguins make some of their first voluntary lineup changes that don’t involve injuries by putting Jesse Puljujarvi back into the lineup and Ryan Shea gets his first game of the season. Rutger McGroarty and Jack St. Ivany get bumped out for the night as a result. Tristan Jarry back in the net for his second game of the season.

The home team of the Montreal elects to go with the following formation.

First period

It’s all Penguins early on, shots are 8-0 early, all the pressure is coming from the visitors. Former Hab Lars Eller stings his old team with his first goal of the night on a wicked shot.

The Pens make it a two goal lead when some cycling by the second line leads to Evgeni Malkin setting up Rickard Rakell for his second goal of the season.

At this point, Montreal would wake up and make their push. Former Penguin Mike Matheson completely fooled Jarry with a fake shot and then there was too much traffic in front for Jarry to catch up to the angle changing to a different area for a point shot from Kaiden Guhle. 2-1 game.

Shots are 11-6 Pittsburgh in the first. The visitors completely dominated early but only take a one-shot lead after 20 minutes.

Second period

Montreal’s surge in the second period tied the game. With Ryan Graves in the box for a slashing minor, Juraj Slafkovsky posts up in front of the net and Nick Suzuki gives Slafkovsky an easy goal to tap in from in front. 2-2.

The Canadiens take the lead on a 2v1 rush. Rookie Emil Heineman skates down the left wing and wires a shot past the glove of Jarry. 3-2 MTL.

To the Pens credit, they found an answer within two minutes to tie the game. Lars Eller scored a second goal of the night, and an absolutely massive one to level the game before the end of the intermission.

Shots in the second frame were 12-10 in favor of Montreal. They responded big time and made a push to get back into the game after a very slow start for them, and as a result they were able to get the game tied up heading to the last period.

Third period

The Pens kept chugging along and Kevin Hayes put them ahead to stay 7:47 into the third when he found the rebound of Erik Karlsson’s shot and poked it in. 4-3 Pens.

Some slick skating by Lane Hutson backfired when he got trapped in the offensive zone and Pittsburgh counter-attacked on the rush. Matt Grzelcyk did well to rush the puck and find Malkin, and then Malkin showed the vision that’s made him one of the league’s greats to find a streaking Kris Letang and bump over a pass for him to lift into the net. Malkin was giving the goalie a shot look all the way and then dished it off out of no where, thing of beauty. 5-3 Pens.

The Habs kept pushing, and pulled their goalie. Fittingly, it was Malkin to end this game with an empty net from about 140 feet that he confidently and successfully fired into the net for his 499th career goal. 6-3 would be the final.

Some thoughts

• Experience ended up carrying the day for the Pens. Lars Eller, 35, scored two goals. Malkin, 38, went 1G+2A and was the most impactful player on the ice. Montreal’s defense featured four players under 23, they endured some lessons and growing pains from the vets tonight. Even 30-somethings Kevin Hayes and Noel Acciari worked over youngster Arber Xhekaj on the game winner. Usually speed and youth carries the day in hockey, but tonight was a reminder that sometimes the old boys can still get the job done (Malkin and Letang hooking up for the insurance goal in the third period in this vein as well).
• Jarry earned the win by settling in late, but there were more nervy moments. A couple of the goals were head shakers. As Bob Grove said before the game: in Jarry’s last 14 road starts, he had a 2-10-2 record, .895 save% and a 3.19 GAA. Jarry earned the win, at least, but added similar stats (.888 save%, 3.00 GAA) to the pile for unimpressive play on the road late. Add in a couple goals that he’d want back and it wasn’t the most smooth of games. Saying all that, a win is a win so baby steps, I suppose. But I can’t imagine anyone has any good reason to feel confident in his game so far this season. (Luckily for him, it’s a long season).
• Grove also pointed out an interesting wrinkle that the last seven of Rakell’s goals have all come on the road. With the way that second line is playing, he should have a good chance to end that streak in the next two games, which will be at home.
• Malkin is up to seven points (1G+6A) in the first four games of the season! What a flourish for him at the beginning of the year. It’s often been said that while players can return from ACL injuries in a year or less, it usually takes another full year before they really get back to the same level. Not really sure if that’s the case here (with Malkin now 3+ years out from a summer 2021 ACL surgery) but just from his jump in these early games he’s getting around the ice surprisingly well compared to how he was skating in recent seasons.
• The other big line was only OK. No shots on goal were recorded by Sidney Crosby, though he did have four attempts. Bryan Rust had six SOG, but doesn’t really look like Bryan Rust quite yet coming off his preseason injury. Still looks like something is missing for that line, it’ll be interesting to see how the “give it time vs. start tinkering” decision will play out.
• The swings in this game were incredible, it was all Pens early (Montreal didn’t even record a shot on goal until almost 14 minutes into the game) but then at one point in the second tide had turned to where the Canadiens had went on a mid-game run of a 14-4 SOG edge. Luckily Pittsburgh weathered the storm and was able to come out the other side with a strong third period sending them to victory.
• This was a sneaky important game for the Pens to get back to .500. A game against Carolina and an always tough Western Canadian road trip is on the horizon. And Pittsburgh plays Buffalo, a desperate team where they have their captain fighting teammates in practice, so who the hell knows what they might have up their sleeves for Wednesday. Point being, Pittsburgh couldn’t drop a game in Montreal with the upcoming challenging competition ahead.

With that, we’ll see just what Buffalo might have in store in the next game for the Pens on Wednesday. Tonight they got back to .500 with a 2-2 season record, and the opportunity to get over that should be on the table next time out.