Pens/Ducks Recap: Sidney Crosby provides all the offense Pittsburgh needs to snap losing streak

The captain scores twice, and that’s enough for the Pens to walk away from a 2-1 overtime victory against the over-matched Anaheim Ducks

Pregame

Blake Lizotte is able to make his season debut for the Penguins, who scratch Jesse Puljujarvi and go with Alex Nedeljkovic in net with these lines in front of him.

The visiting Anaheim Ducks bring the following lineup to the Halloween party.

First period

It’s all Pittsburgh early, they dominate puck control and jump out early on shots 7-2. Anaheim takes Evgeni Malkin down and the Pens get the first power play. They don’t score but add three more shots on Lukas Dostal.

Anaheim finally comes to life after the Pens are up 13-2 on the shot clock. Nedeljkovic whiffs on dropping the puck after a big glove save and Kris Letang keeps it out of net but a scramble ensues. Brian Dumoulin almost scores for the Ducks but hits the post.

The Ducks score with 4:10 left. Ryan Graves goes lunging on the rush and whiffs on the puck, he gets back in the play but allows a pass from below the net to go right by him and Alex Killorn is there to snap it in off that pass.

Sidney Crosby takes an offensive zone penalty and the Pens end the period on the penalty kill.

Shots are 18-7 in favor of PIT. Moneypuck has first period xGF at 1.39 – 0.54, but Pittsburgh can’t crack Dostal and one defensive slip leads to (surprise) a puck in their net.

Second period

Good start for the Pens and they get another power play when Mason McTavish barrels into Nedeljkovic. Unlike the first power play, this one is a disjointed mess.

Pittsburgh back to the power play when Cody Glass gets held. It’s a little nicer looking but can’t crack Dostal.

The Pens really get rolling late, Crosby passes over for Rakell in front of the net but Dostal stones him. Pittsburgh gets sloppy and immediately gets caught with too many players on the ice.

Shots are 11-11. Kinda a boring period for the Pens, they’re not showing a lot of dynamic play and Dostal has all the answers through 40 minutes to keep it a 1-0 Anaheim lead.

Third period

Early on, the Penguins crack Dostal. Matt Grzelcyk sends a shot from the point in, Crosby deflects it then it hits the ice and skips in past the Anaheim goalie. It takes Pittsburgh 31 shots but they finally get their first goal of the night.

Out of no where the Ducks pop out with about 4 minutes left and Nedeljkovic robs Trevor Zegras following a Marcus Pettersson turnover. Pettersson comes back to help keep the puck out and then somehow the rebound chance for Cutter Gauthier hits Nedeljkovic’s loose stick and stays out of the net too.

Gauthier gets a breakaway with 90 seconds left but Nedeljkovic stops him.

Nedeljokvic has to make another quality save with about 10 seconds left after Pavel Mintuykov slipped by Erik Karlsson and got a centering pass from in tight.

Crazy enough, Nedeljokvic had little to do until the last five minutes and had more quality to stop than in the first 55 minutes of the whole game combined. Shots overall are 45-23 to the Pens. But the score is even after regulation.

Overtime

Crosby-Rakell-Karlsson start things out for the Pens. Sid wins the faceoff and Pittsburgh stays in control of the puck long enough to make a full change 30 seconds in and trap the Anaheim players.

The Ducks gets the puck back and control it for a while, finally the Pens wrestle it away, nice hustle play by Cody Glass at the end of the shift and Crosby wins the puck forward to himself. The captain has plenty of time in front of the net all alone, he dekes and draws Dostal out of his angle and lifts a forehand shot into the net. Pens win.

Some thoughts

• The Ducks didn’t have a lot of juice early. They looked a step slow and barely able to keep up. You know, kinda like the Pens when they play a team like NYR or Carolina. Usually when those teams get 18 shots in a period though they punch in at least a goal or two.
• Something about Erik Karlsson now, like he has a mental block or something that makes him allergic to making the right decision now. He shoots when he should pass (and too frequently wide), he passes when he should shoot, it’s like no matter what he’s got going right now it’s not quite working out.
• Dostal has been the best goalie in the league this year by save percentage and GSAA and that was on display. He’s pretty good and dialed in right now. Shame he had to take the loss, at the end of regulation Moneypuck had xGF at 4.6 – 2. The only reason that game wasn’t a Penguin regulation win was because Dostal was on top of his game.
• The Pens’ first line was a goal waiting to happen all night, shots on goal while they were on the ice was 26-13 in favor of them, and at one point it was 18-4. Pure domination and control, even if it did lack some finish.
• Tonight we saw goals 594 and 595 for Crosby. Weirdly enough, he’s currently got more OT goals this year (2) than goals scored in regulation (1).
• Whenever you see something presented with a negative connotation about the Pens being the second oldest team in the league, well, you saw what the fourth youngest team in the league (ANA) looks like by comparison. Young isn’t always good, being too young usually means having to catch up to the speed of the game. The old Penguins out-shot and out-played Anaheim at a 2-1 margin today, which makes for a fitting final score. (That’s not to say Pittsburgh can’t and shouldn’t look to get younger, which they will).
• It was kinda a Martin Brodeur type of night for Nedeljkovic. Not that Ned is on the HOF’ers level but for so many games Brodeur would have 22 saves on 23 shots with periods of barely having to be called on and then have to make a few huge stops to preserve his low scoring team’s chances in the game with no margin of error. That can be it’s own type of challenge, but for once surely the Penguin goalie had to be happy to watch the other guy get bombarded with 40+ shots and get a night of relative inaction.

One more game at home in this sequence and it comes on Saturday night against Montreal. The Pens already have beaten the Habs once this year, and they’ll look to do that again to keep building and turn what was a losing streak into potentially a successful home-stand and modest winning streak to get them back on the road to respectability.