Penguins/Kings Recap: Pens run away from Kings to earn 5-1 win

The Pens put on a late night show, scoring early and often in a 5-1 victory over Los Angeles

Pregame

The Penguins don’t have the services of Rickard Rakell (personal reasons) but get P.O. Joseph back from the sick bay.

First period

Pittsburgh scores first on the power play, great individual effort from big Kevin Hayes. He keeps skating through the Kings, fakes out Joel Edmundson and drives to the net to create something out of nothing for his eighth goal of the season.

Sidney Crosby doubles the lead with another play that escalated quickly. Matt Grzelcyk threw a fluttering point shot to the net, Crosby got a deflection on it that hit the ice and bounced up. Nothing goalie David Rittich can do about that one. 2-0 Pens.

Shots go 12-6 in favor of the visitors and they carry a 2-0 lead after a strong first period.

Second period

The Pens keep building and find another goal, Philip Tomasino swoops around Edmundson and sends a pass over for Evgeni Malkin. Malkin shoots quickly and beats the goalie five-hole with the lateral movement. 3-0.

The worm starts to turn later on, Owen Pickering takes a holding the stick call and then while on the PK, Joseph takes a penalty to give the Kings 1:03 to work with in a 5v3 situation. The Kings work the puck around for Adrian Kempe to fire from the right side, he hits the post. They calmly regroup and try the same play again and this time his shot hits the mark. 3-1 game.

The Pens kill off the rest of the penalty, and though LA comes close to scoring, Pittsburgh takes the play the other way. It’s Hayes again driving to the net, this time he centers the puck for Cody Glass to chip it in and re-establish a three-goal lead in the last minute of the period.

Pens head to the final break up 4-1.

Third period

Pittsburgh pads the lead further, Crosby sets up Kris Letang for a shot. Rittich stops it but before he can freeze the puck, Anthony Beauvillier is hanging on the doorstep and guides the puck into the net behind the goalie. 5-1.

Rest of the game comes and goes and the Pens skate away with a victory.

Some thoughts

• Emphatic celebration by Malkin on his goal, you could tell he was happy about that. Malkin scored against the Kings last month (Dec. 17th) but only had one goal in his last 11 games from then until tonight.
• Wouldn’t mind seeing Tomasino and Malkin back together again. The youngster has some hands and can create offensive, which has been woefully short for Malkin and undoubtedly hurt his goal scoring ability in his older age. The two together might be too shaky defensively to last forever, but in bits and spurts the challenge to find enough skill to play with the best players (especially when a player like Rakell is absent) is huge for the Pens.
• This game won’t go on the highlight reels for Edmundson. He’s actually having a pretty good season on the surface (a few goals, 11 points, 20+ minutes per game) but how the heck does a 31-year old slow defender who wasn’t exactly on the upswing get a four-year contract in free agency for a decent-sized $3.85m cap hit? Gotta be a matter of time before that looks regrettable.
• Similarly, Rittich has had a better season so far than he showed tonight as far as keeping pucks out of the net with a 2.52 GAA, but it’s nice for the Pens to have an advantage in net for their goalie out-playing the guy at the other end. That hasn’t happened very often this season, which is a tough way to make a go of it.
• Minor, but interesting that Pickering lost his stick two times that I can remember in the d-zone in the first two periods. The second instance he grabbed the stick out of an opponent’s hand to take a penalty. Not a huge deal but the learning curve in the fast NHL can test even the basics sometimes when waving that thing around and it goes astray, don’t see that happen frequently to veterans.
• Speaking of penalties, update the log to show Joseph has gone to the box now in his last three games played, and four out of the last five. It hasn’t cost him a place in the lineup yet (he was out ill last game in Washington) but at some point it has to become a consideration, sometimes teams have to live with defenders taking the occasional stick foul but the frequency is becoming problematic.
• Is Kevin Hayes the Pens’ secret weapon? He’s up to four goals in his last nine games (which, taking a look at the middle-six forwards on this team’s goal totals isn’t nothin’) and still can create with the puck on his stick.
• Similarly, Glass is heating up with two goals in the last three games. It isn’t pretty, he awkwardly lost the puck and almost put himself offside at the line but kept things together enough to recover and eventually score from in tight on a shot that might have hit the goalie twice and still gone in. At this point, I guess the style points don’t matter for a guy with now three goals on the campaign.

In the end, good ol’ fashioned type of game for the Pens. Crosby and Malkin both score goals to push the team out to a fairly sizeable lead and they earn a victory on the road. Nice treat for those who stayed up late to watch it. Pittsburgh gets a few days on the road to catch their breath and the short trip over to Anaheim for their next game on Thursday.