Penguins/Golden Knights Recap: Pens need OT but win again

Sidney Crosby scores twice and Erik Karlsson adds an OT goal to keep Pittsburgh in the winning column

Pregame

Fresh off a win, the Penguins stick with Tristan Jarry in net. Ryan Shea is out for a while (since the Pens can’t have even remotely nicely things on the back-end for very long) which pushes the new guy Vladislav Kolyachonok up in the lineup. Tommy Novak is out with injury too so Danton Heinen is back. Despite the listing on the graphic, the coaches come to their senses and don’t actually play Connor Dewar (he of 0 goals in 32 games this season) is on Evgeni Malkin’s wing.

First period

Nice enough start for Pittsburgh, they get some early saves from Jarry and an early power play. Notable perhaps, since they didn’t get any PP opportunities in Vegas on Friday night. Doesn’t score.

Pittsburgh gets a power play and this time they score. Kevin Hayes holds the puck almost literally forever, skating all around the zone, behind the net and out the other side. When Vegas finally pressures Hayes, he bumps a pass over for Rickard Rakell. Rakell quickly fires a beautiful pass down to Sidney Crosby in front of the net and it’s an easy one for the captain to steer into the net for his 21st goal of the season. 1-0 Pens with 2:12 to play in the period.

Pittsburgh takes a 1-0 lead into the first intermission. They’re being outshot 9-5.

Second period

The Pens start the second period out well too, Malkin jumps the opening draw with the puck and is taken down to send Pittsburgh to a third straight power play. They don’t score on it, but a little later Crosby notches his second goal of the game. Crosby wins a draw in the offensive zone and eventually gets the puck back. There’s plenty of room for him to walk up in the zone and he wires a hard shot low by Ilya Samsonov to extend the lead to 2-0 just 3:02 into the second.

Vegas gets a power play and they score on it. Jarry had a great start but gets beaten five-hole cleanly from a far shot. There he is. 2-1 game.

Pittsburgh keeps up the fight, Hayes sets Malkin up but he flubs the shot on a hard pass. Kolyachonok has a look from in tight but his shot somehow rings off the crossbar and stays out of the net.

It’s a 2-1 game at the end of 40 minutes, shots 18-12 Vegas overall.

Third period

It’s a goalie-heavy start to the period, each netminder does well on wraparound attempts..Later Jarry stops a nice one through traffic and shuts down a Vegas breakaway (including a scramble to keep the loose puck out).

The Knights are putting on full pressure to tie. Goalie is pulled in crunch time. Crosby makes a few nice defensive plays and Jarry makes a big save on Jack Eichel.

Vegas takes timeout with 20 seconds to go. Coach Bruce Cassidy is animated and angrily shrugging at his team as they claw to try and tie the game before the clock ends.

They find it. Noah Hanifin blasts one that Noel Acciari can’t block and it sails into the short-side on Jarry with traffic in front. 2-2 tie with only 6.0 seconds to go.

Shots in the third were 19-4. That didn’t seem like the Penguins going in a shell so much as Vegas simply taking over and trying to beat the clock to not lose in regulation.

Overtime

Crosby-Rust-Letang start the proceedings, Pittsburgh wins the faceoff and gets the all-important puck control. They never let Vegas touch it, one line change later and Erik Karlsson wins the game 49 seconds into OT with a shot on the rush down the right side.

Some thoughts

• This spot has been harsh about Hayes on the top power play over Malkin, so credit where it’s due for his heady and great play on said power play in this game. Nice job by Hayes, he doesn’t have the legs to feature as a good player in the league any longer, with 9G+9A in 50 games he’s been OK enough. He’s certainly not as useless as many who play on a nightly basis. (That was meant to sound slightly less backhanded than it read).
• Crosby recorded his 15th season of 70+ points, only four players (Howe, Francis, Gretzky, Dionne) have more.
• Crosby missed two games, he’ll max out with 80 games this season. That means he only needs 10 more points over the team’s last 15 games to ensure a point/game season and break Wayne Gretzky’s mark for most seasons in that category.
• Beastly performance by Crosby, this was one of those games he dragged the team along to get a result. Two goals on seven shot attempts, winner of 60% of his faceoffs and was a force all over the ice.
• The “most under-rated” talk is always mildly annoying, especially for players like Sasha Barkov (second overall pick in his draft, in the Selke conversation since 2016, All-Star at 22) where anyone paying attention has understood it’s a very elite player that might not get much attention aside from the seemingly endless talk of being not talked about. That being said, is Pavel Dorofeyev up there now? Perhaps more of an unknown player have a great year, at least when it comes to being an under-the-radar power play weapon (he scored his 11th PPG tonight, only six players in the NHL have more). Doubt many casuals or even astute observers have much of a file on him.
• Does anyone else see some Jeff Petry in Conor Timmons? They’re the exact same size (6’3”, 210ish), both right hand shots, decent skaters. The way Timmons carries himself on the ice brought the style comparison to mind. If you want to be hopeful, Petry didn’t really breakout in his career until about age-27 when he changed teams to Montreal in the mid 2010’s. Timmons is 26 now. There’s no guarantee of similar emergence to grow into being more than a bottom-pair player but that would be a nice turn of events for the Pens if there ends up being anything there.
• Jarry now 2-0 since returning from AHL banishment. Aside from the ramifications of playing well when the season is decided, it would be a good thing if his form reverts back into being a playable goalie down the stretch. The first goal was a head scratcher to give up but he more than made up for it with great play over the course of the rest of the game.
• While that redemption story is at least in the early stages of being written, the same can’t be said for Ryan Graves. He only played 10:28, the guy they plucked off waivers got almost 22 minutes of ice time. Couldn’t be more clear this team has nothing for Graves right now, they don’t dress him unless necessary and then they don’t play him much even when they do. Tough to see a way out of that with three years still left on his deal.

It’s a modest two-game winning streak for the Pens, and they have four more in a row at home. St. Louis comes to town on Thursday.