Penguins/Canadiens Recap: Pens ride Crosby, defense to winning effort against Montreal

It wasn’t the prettiest game, but Sidney Crosby scores two more goals and the Pens held on the rest of the way in a 3-1 victory over Montreal

Pregame

Pittsburgh uses the same lines and goalie for a second game in a row.

The visiting Montreal Canadiens have this lineup for tonight’s game.

First period

Quiet start to the game, neither team gets much traction in the early going. Pittsburgh gets an early power play, less said the better.

Then the Penguins’ first line gets the party started, Rickard Rakell holds the zone and finds Sidney Crosby with a pass. Evgeni Malkin goes to the net but the captain calls his own number and wires a shot to the top of the net. 1-0.

Shots are only 5-5 early.

Second period

The action heats up in the second period and the Pens start to emerge and get the better of the play. They navigate around Valtteri Puustinen and Kris Letang minor penalties, Alex Nedeljkovic gets called on a few times for some big saves. and then the Pens get a power play of their own when the puck is cleared over the glass.

It looks like nothing will come of it, but Arber Xhekaj chops Michael Bunting in front of the net in the no-no zone after a whistle. Nothing is called but the Pens decide to put their top power play out for the final few seconds of the advantage. It works, Crosby wins the o-zone draw, works a rotation play with Letang and Crosby scores his second of the game from distance. 2-0.

Shots in the second are 16-10 Pittsburgh. The game feels more in hand than the relatively narrow 2-0 score shows.

Third period

Both teams pick up the hitting a little bit, and then the Pens give up their first goal in over five periods. Matt Grzelcyk fails to clear the zone by going up the wall to Rickard Rakell, the turnover goes back the other way. Christian Dvorak shoots, Nedeljkovic saves but Dvorak finds his own rebound and snaps it home. 2-1 Montreal.

Crosby comes out the next shift with a drive to the net, he’s taken down but no penalty is called.

Noel Acciari attempts a wraparound that hits the post with about 8 minutes left.

Nedeljkovic loses his stick but reaches across his body (oy) to make a glove save

Montreal is into full press mode, Acciari rocks Juraj Slafkovsky with a big hit. The Habs are living in the Pittsburgh zone.

Goalie Samuel Montembault is lifted for the extra attacked with 2:30 left. Not a bad idea since the last several minutes of 5v5 was looking like an advantage. The Pens get the puck but Montreal protects the net well.

The Pens ice the puck with 1:01 to go, the Canadiens utilize their timeout to rest and regroup. It doesn’t work, Blake Lizotte hounds the puck and steals it from Mike Matheson, Eller helps win it back and Lizotte finally can skate to space and seal the deal with the empty netter.

Tensions and tempers boil over with a few seconds left. Several Canadien players are trying to get at Acciari after his game of several big hits. Graves gets tangled up with someone and gets mad enough to drop the gloves and fights. Crosby tackles someone with a side headlock.

Shots were 12-3 MTL in the final frame, they woke up and made a hard push but couldn’t make up all the ground that they needed to.

Some thoughts

• Montreal came into the game on a three-game losing streak and coach Martin St. Louis put them through the paces with a tough Friday practice. It didn’t register in terms of making his players show a lot of emotion or play better tonight until the very end. Frustrating times for the Habs these days.
• Then again, these two teams have been hemorrhaging chances against and neither got into a wide-open type of game. So maybe by design this one stayed as a tight checking affair.
• It’s a mirage of course with the low quality of competition, but it has to be good for the Pens to have a second straight good defensive game to move forward with, if only for the confidence boost. Now we’ll see if that travels with some games next week against tougher opponents.
• This is the first game all season the Pens never trailed during it. It took until Game No. 13 of the year, but finally a relatively worry and stress-free outing. Relatively being the key word since the game was still in question until almost the end, but as far as defending a lead goes it was a successful night of holding on.
• Crosby didn’t have a good handful of games earlier in the week, but he’s come back with a vengeance lately. That’s the least surprising thing in the world that he would pick it back up and put it upon himself to help the team start digging out of their hole.
• After his second goal of the game, Crosby had scored the Pens’ last four goals and factored in with a goal or assist in the team’s last seven goals. That’s taking over and impressive for him but the underlying point that also makes is that no other lines have been scoring lately, until Lizotte broke that streak with an open net goal.
• And that’s how the Pens are these days. The first line is fun and consistently making things happen. Lars Eller or Noel Acciari show some occasional signs of life and then every other forward is just kinda there. A lot of passengers out there.
• Matt Grzelcyk left the game to the locker-room in the middle of the first period but was able to return to the ice pretty quickly there after.
• Nedeljkovic’s night ramped up as the game did with period breakdowns of seeing 5, 10 and 12 shots. Not much to do early on but he had to be sharp late. And he was. The Pens need someone to establish themselves as their goalie and right now he’s doing his part.

It ends up as a successful 2-1-0 homestand for the Pens, who now will take some good vibes and positive momentum on the road for three very important early season games against division rivals in the coming days. First up will be a trip to Long Island for Tuesday night.