Penguins/Rangers Recap: Pens find a way to win in New York in a gutsy effort

No Crosby, no Malkin, no problem tonight for the Penguins. They scrape by the Rangers 3-2 on the road

Pregame

The Penguins don’t have the services of captain Sidney Crosby in their game lineup for the first time in almost three years due to his undisclosed injury from last game. Evgeni Malkin isn’t near being back, so avert your eyes at the lineup or if you must look attempt to do so indirectly.

First period

The Rangers get three shots within the first 30 seconds and it doesn’t look like it’s going to be a pretty picture for the Penguins. Luckily they are able to stabilize a bit and New York goes eight minutes without a shot. But their next one breaks the ice, Emil Bemstrom (first game in the NHL this season, let’s remember) and Phillip Tomasino opt to skate right off the ice for a change and open up a lot of ice down the rink. Erik Karlsson’s pass attempt gets thwarted by Alexis Lafreniere and the puck pops over to an unmarked Vincent Trocheck in the slot. Yeah, that’s not gonna work. 1-0 NYR.

Pittsburgh gets a power play but not much happens. About the only excitement is late in the period when it looks like a shot catches goalie Igor Shesterkin on the finger/hand causing him to drop his stick immediately and then wince in some pain after the whistle. He’s good to continue.

Shots are 11-8 Pens after one. Not terribly exciting but save the one slip it would be tied. Alas, it’s 1-0 Rangers.

Second period

Pittsburgh gets something going early and gets on the board. Karlsson steps up to grab a turnover and feeds is ahead for Noel Acciari into the zone. Acciari hits Blake Lizotte who has room and the angle on Shesterkin. 1-1 game.

The Pens give it back. The top line is at the end of a semi-long shift, Anthony Beauvillier is hunched over and barely moves out to cover Adam Fox in a pathetic effort. Big mistake. Fox measures up a shot to snap by Nedeljkovic. 2-1 NYR.

Going punch for punch, Pittsburgh gets a chance to answer right back. Michael Bunting feeds Ryan Graves, who finds himself down near the net and cutting against the gain. Shesterkin is totally beat, all Graves has to do is slide it off the backhand and in and he…just fans on it. Didn’t look like it rolled or anything. Graves collected it on his forehand and tried to jam it home but Zac Jones blocked it with his stick. Graves’ best chance by far for his first point of the season comes and goes just like that.

One player with some hands is Rickard Rakell and he makes some nice dekes after a hard pass from Bryan Rust and lifts the puck over Shesterkin to tie the game at 2-2.

The Pens draw another power play, and hey, look, it’s a power play goal (shoutout to the retiring MSG announcer Sam Rosen). Bunting fires a pass over that Rust puts an amazing bit of English on behind his body to direct if over to Tomasino. Tomasino he rips it from in front. It’s in and Pittsburgh has the lead for the first time at 3-2.

Pittsburgh up by a goal heading into the third, outshooting the Rangers 26-17 in totality to this point.

Third period

Pittsburgh in hold on mode, failing to generate a shot for the entirety of the third period. Literally none.

P.O. Joseph got whistled for cross-checking with 6:05 left to play to send the Rangers to their first power play of the night. The Pens escape the danger.

The refs open the door for NYR one more time with 2:36 to play to send Bunting to the box for the crime of playing harder than Fox and keeping his legs moving. Noel Acciari blocks approximately 1,000,000 shot attempts (estimated) and New York can’t break through.

NYR pulls the goalie and takes a timeout. Nothing works. The Pens eke out a gutsy win.

Some thoughts

• With Crosby missing his first game of the season, only three Penguin players have perfect attendance for playing 56/56 games so far. Can you name them? (Answer at bottom)
• For all we know the bench might have been hollerin’ at Bemstrom and Tomasino to change on NYR’s first goal to explain why they noped right out of the picture so it would be highly impractical to fault them out of hand, but it resulted in an ugly sequence nonetheless. It’s easy to breakdown in retrospect but Tomasino should have aborted the change and picked up the forward once the play developed and Bemstrom had already bailed across the ice to the bench. The Pens were going to have to get all the little details absolutely perfect in this game to have a chance. They didn’t and the unmarked forward ended up sliding right into the middle of the ice to open the scoring. It’s a tough circumstance but Tomasino needs to be empowered and quick enough to get make the right decision as that developed.
• Nice to see Tomasino be able to lean into his strengths and score on the power play to atone for the slip. Karlsson got his part of that early goal back too by starting the sequence for Lizotte’s goal. It’s a game of mistakes and redemption.
• Pittsburgh defeated the Kings back on January 20th with a 5-1 effort. Their goals/game since that night: 1, 1, 1, 3*, 3*, 2 and now 3. We put little asterisks on two of those outputs were boosted by a 3v3 OT goal and an empty net goal — both of which count but by the same token — the Pens scored seven total regulation goals with a goalie in the net over their previous six games before tonight. The firepower is severely lacking so all things considered it was pretty solid offensive effort by their recent standards. And without Crosby and Malkin, wonders never cease.
• If you needed a reminder on how fast the majority of NHL rosters turn over: 16 out of the 19 players who played tonight (so, not counting backup goalie Joel Blomqvist) were acquired by Kyle Dubas. Every one in the game tonight besides Rakell, Rust and Letang. Dubas has been in Pittsburgh for less than two years. He’s been building more for the future with draft picks and prospects that will hopefully join the NHL ranks down the line but
• Of those 16, six have contracts that expire after this season. seven more are up after 2025-26 is over. Roster churn in the NHL is inevitable but it’s almost assured given team strength and building that a majority of the players in the lineup tonight for the Pens probably won’t be in the next 12-16 months, if not even sooner.
• Graves now at 39 games this season without a single point. Total skill issue on his flub in the second period. No reason to drag him over the coals even further without simply commiserating in how rotten it’s going for him with the Penguins. This is a player who scored 14 total goals in a two-season span with New Jersey and he can’t even complete a player that a peewee could be counted on to finish. Bad times.
• No skill issue for Bryan Rust. Check out his two assists again; the first was nice enough across the ice with high velocity. That second one on the Tomasino goal was a thing of beauty that’s worth seeing again. He reaches out far to the right, let’s the puck touch his stick and lifts it perfectly to angle it for a player almost completely behind him.
• Shot attempts when Pittsburgh took a 3-2 lead: 47-19 in their favor. NYR saw the news about Crosby and the lineup sheet, and consciously or not they sure acted like it was going to be an easy night at the office. Coasting usually isn’t something a team can get away with in the NHL these days. They tried to get to the gas pedal late in the game, but it wasn’t enough. Can’t bode well for their chances this season to give up what really should have been two points in a home win against an out-manned Pittsburgh team.
• Ranger coach Peter Laviolette had the classic dead eye, 1000-yard stare on the bench towards the end of the game. Never an encouraging sign. Who knows what his job security may or may not be but he did not look like a man with a lot of confidence in having any answers at the moment.
• Rakell won seven of his first 10 faceoffs on the night. Not bad for a guy who hasn’t played much center in many moons (hasn’t had a season off 100+ faceoffs since 2017-18). Ended up winning 9/16 at the end of the game.
• Boko Imama only took one shift in the second period and was done for the night with an undisclosed upper body injury. Hate to see that for a guy who likely already had a ticking clock on his NHL future in the first place.
• The three Penguin players to appear in all 56 games so far this season: Matt Grzelcyk, Erik Karlsson and Noel Acciari.

It won’t be a win that means a lot for Pittsburgh at the end, but it showed a lot of heart and guts to step up and earn a victory on the road, in front of many of their fathers and mentors. Doesn’t cost anything or take any special talent to put in a best effort and the Pens showed it tonight. Wasn’t necessarily the prettiest but in the big scope of things it gets NYR a little closer to a top-13 pick this season, which gets Pittsburgh a little closer to the Rangers’ unprotected first round pick in 2026. Who knows just how much that pick might be worth if the dysfunction at the Garden continues to linger, which is a result we can all enjoy.