Penguins/Panthers Recap: Pens need OT to win fourth straight game and overcome Florida’s surge

Surviving a blown 4-1 lead, Bryan Rust scores in overtime to lift Pittsburgh to their fourth win in a row

Pregame

The Penguins stick with the players that they’ve been using together lately, but put Tristan Jarry back in the net.

The visiting Florida Panthers have the following group ready to go.

First period

Fairly quiet game early on. Tristan Jarry gets tested by Matthew Tkachuk and comes up big. Seconds later, Kris Letang clears the puck out of the zone but turns it over at the middle of the ice. Florida roars back and a long-range shot from Jesper Boqvist is one Jarry can see all the way, but the wrister eludes him.

But wait, Pittsburgh challenges the play for offside. And it’s true, Anton Lundell didn’t tag up by the time the puck went out and back into the zone. No goal.

The Pens take advantage of the positive turn of events. Blake Lizotte digs out a loose puck to the point towards Owen Pickering. Michael Bunting is posted up in front of the net and the rookie defender lets a quick shot fly. It has eyes and sneaks on by goalie Spencer Knight and into the net for Pickering’s first career goal in the National!

Seconds later the Pens build on it. Philip Tomasino grabs a turnover and feeds Drew O’Connor. O’Connor centers it back and Tomasino makes a nifty touch pass behind his back to direct it over to a wide open Evgeni Malkin. Malkin makes no mistakes, burying his shot by Knight. 2-0 Pens a blink of an eye after it appeared like it was 1-0 Panthers.

After these shots to the mouth, the Panthers wake up and play harder. They tilt the ice and it starts to feel like only a matter of time before something is coming for them…And it does. Tkachuk is able to score and this time there’s no video review coming to save the day.

Shots in the first are 13-5 FLA. Not too much going on for Pittsburgh but they’re able to make the most of their limited opportunities and carry a 2-1 lead into the first intermission.

Second period

Another fairly quiet start to the period, about the most excitement is the crowd reacting to a no-call when Matt Nieto goes down, but it looked more like he tripped over himself than having any help from an opponent.

After the first TV timeout, Kris Letang scores. Matt Grzelcyk gives him what ends up being a nice pass (that was a wide shot bouncing off the end board) and there was enough traffic in front from the sharp angle that Knight never even flinched before the puck jumped in the net. 3-1 game, Pittsburgh doing work with only seven shots on goal so far.

The Pens earn the first power play of the game when Dmitry Kulikov takes an offensive zone penalty by slashing O’Connor’s stick into two pieces. Florida kills it off, highlighted by Aaron Ekblad blocking a shot from Rickard Rakell from in close.

Jarry gets the best of Aleksander Barkov with a couple of nice saves from in tight after Grzelcyk serves up a brutal giveaway across the middle of his defensive zone.

Late in the period, Bunting bowls over Boqvist near the net when Knight has the puck covered, the Panthers don’t like that. Noel Acciari has been bullying them all night and gets active in a scrum after the whistle. Acciari and AJ Greer take matching minors.

Letang nearly nets his second goal of the game in the 4v4, he dumps Sam Reinhart on his seat and goes to the net. Crosby’s pass hits rough ice and bounces up, Letang gets a piece for a tip but it’s not strong enough to get by Knight.

Shots are 11-5 FLA in the second and 24-10 in their favor overall, but the Pens are playing a feisty and opportunistic game to carry the 3-1 lead into the final frame.

Third period

Marcus Pettersson scores a pretty one on a power move in front. Rakell blocks a shot and Crosby rushes the puck up the zone, with the team in the midst of a line change Pettersson is the trailer that Crosby finds. Pettersson swoops in all the way to the net and finishes on the forehand. Wow. Nice one to make it 4-1.

But there’s still a lot of time left to play and the defending Stanley Cup champs aren’t going away easily. The puck goes behind the net, takes an odd bounce but is collected by Sam Bennett in the slot. He makes no mistakes and it’s a 4-2 game.

The Panthers strike again two minutes later. Several Pens sweep for the puck to get it away from Tkachuk, none of them can. Ryan Shea bumps it with his hand but Tkachuk regains control and bumps a pass over for Adam Boqvist. His shot beats Jarry. 4-3 now.

Bad goes to worse when Lizotte takes the first Pittsburgh penalty of the game. The Pens look like they’ll hold but Pettersson, Letang and O’Connor can’t coordinate to clear the zone. A shot from the point is tipped by Tkachuk. It hits the post but he has enough time to poke home the rebound. 4-4 game with 8:33 to play.

A TV timeout helps quell the momentum and the Pens are able to regroup enough to keep it even through 60 minutes. If you only knew one item that shots were 41-15 FLA to this point, a tie score wouldn’t likely be the first guess.

Overtime

Fun play in OT, the Panthers win the opening draw and keep possession for a while. Rakell makes a nice play defending on the rush and Pittsburgh gets the puck back – which they mostly keep for the rest of the game.

It comes down to a 2-on-1 rush, Bryan Rust looks off the pass to Erik Karlsson and Rust shoots it himself up and over Knight’s glove to secure the victory for the Pens.

Some thoughts

• It hasn’t been and will not be an immediate youth revolution in Pittsburgh, but young players are making an impact and providing this team with some energy. Lizotte isn’t NHL young at 26 but he’s only been in Pittsburgh for 11 games, he showed some burst and effort to poke a puck back. Pickering at 20 did nothing special as far as the heaviness of his shot, but he was smart enough to realize the pace of how quickly he could get the puck to the net was the most important variable. Fast forward to the next goal and Tomasino did what he does best by making a very nice skilled play in the o-zone. Pickering and Tomasino are looking like the right mid-season additions to a team that needed the freshness.
• It’s been said before but is worth repeating that NHL video staffs are so good at their jobs. Florida wasn’t even done hugging it out in celebration before Mike Sullivan had challenged the play. And this wasn’t some 30-second possession that could be tabbed ahead of time, it was quick out the zone, even quicker back in and then right in the net. Madison Nikkel and CJ D’Alimonte prove their worth yet again. Sullivan didn’t hesitate even a bit , there’s no doubt he has full faith and trust in that crew. This decision is one more piece of evidence why he does.
• The washed out goal saved Jarry from surrendering a goal on the fourth shot of the game that he saw, which would have been the eighth time in his nine starts this season of giving up a goal within the first five SOGs. Unreal. As it was, he gave up a goal on the 12th Florida shot.
• Weirdly enough, in several of the recent games Jarry has been just fine (and outright very good at times) once he can get through those first 1, 2, 5 shots of the night. Goaltending is so inexplicably, confoundingly odd like that. He gave up four goals on the night but Florida had over 40 shots and relentless pressure that eventually broke down the Pens’ defense.
• Credit to the TV broadcast for pointing out this is only the second game of the year the Pens got multiple goals in the same game from blueliners. And the first one was back in the second game of the year (a 6-3 win over Detroit). It ended up being an unconventional game, the forwards didn’t get much going on with their own shots but the defenders found ways to pitch in and make up the difference by hitting the net three times.
• Two assist night for Lizotte, both as a result from dogged puck chasing in the o-zone. The third line is going great; Bunting is in front of the net, Beauvillier is keeping up but Lizotte is the special sauce with good old fashioned work getting rewarded. Good spot to shoehorn in the Pens improve to 7-2-2 this season with Lizotte in the lineup? Seems like it. Lizotte is finding a groove and making an impact in the spiritual successor to the Brandon Tanev hustle/energy role that it was hoped he would fit into.
• Tkachuk straight up took over the game by notching three points (1G+2A) in a five minute span in the third period to add to a goal he already scored. Not many have answers for him when he’s on his game and Pittsburgh sure didn’t tonight. Fortunately he didn’t have a fifth point in him for this game.
• Tonight was the Pens’ ninth multiple-goal blown lead of the season. Annoyance as they all are, but considering the shot and chance discrepancy heavily in favor of FLA it could be considered a minor miracle that Pittsburgh scored four of the game’s first give goals in the first place. This one didn’t feel like Pittsburgh suddenly going passive since they were unable to get a lot of sustained pressure literally all game long, more that the superior team woke up and started playing like it.
• In the “it happens” file, you don’t have to look far to see Buffalo blew a 4-0 lead tonight to end up losing 5-4 to Colorado in regulation. Very good teams playing mediocre opponents are never truly out of it with the way the NHL game is these days, which no Penguin fan needs reminded.
• That said, the Pens have ended up winning four of the nine games where they’ve blown the multi-goal lead. Sometimes in 3v3 OT you can find a way to get the result.

The Penguins get a few more days off and gear up for a busy weekend with a game Friday night against the struggling Rangers and then back home in Pittsburgh on Saturday to meet the Maple Leafs.