Pregame
No Sam Girard for the Penguins tonight (day-to-day injury), Stuart Skinner in the net.
They meet this lineup from the Carolina Hurricanes tonight.
First period
Tough start for the Penguins, Connor Clifton does well to smack a puck out of mid-air that might have been floating into the net but he knocked it off the rink to take a penalty. Pittsburgh kills it off at the expense of the Hurricanes starting strong and looking to hang onto the puck.
Play builds further, CAR takes six of the first seven shots on goal. They score on a sequence where defenseman Mike Reilly skated in and shot high for a rebound Stuart Skinner couldn’t control. The puck bounced around for a bit until Logan Stankoven found it and quickly deposited into the net. 1-0 home team early.
Carolina keeps the steamroller going, pinning the Pens in their zone for a long shift. Seth Jarvis finds himself free in front of the net, dekes but Skinner uses a stretched leg to make a big stop.
After a TV timeout the Pens are finally able to get something going, coming from Elmer Soderblom and Ben Kindel actually completing a breakout. Soderblom gets a shot on goal and gets tripped along the way to generate the first Penguin power play. Not much comes of it.
Nikolaj Ehlers goes into the corner with Erik Karlsson and the collision downs Ehlers. Their legs came together as Ehlers got crunched against the wall, odd-looking play there.
That put a hush into the crowd, soon after the Pens pinched at the blueline and won the puck back. Ville Koivunen found Anthony Mantha in the middle of the ice with plenty of room, Mantha leaned back and wired a shot to the top shelf for his 24th goal of the season to tie the game at 1-1.
The Pens did a good job to recover after a very rocky opening stretch. They only allowed one goal and found a way to tie the game back up just before intermission. For a long while it looked like it could be a lot less favorable than a 1-1 game after 20 minutes.
Second period
Kouvinen takes a stick to the chops to earn a second power play for the Pens on the night. Carolina gets the better chance when Sebastian Aho goes the other way on a 2-on-1 but Kris Letang is able to spoil the effort with a nice defensive play.
Carolina gets charged for another high-stick, the Pens don’t score again and Aho has another shorthanded opportunity, this time matched by a pair of great saves by Skinner. Rinse and repeat there (Soderblom did hit the post on a nice look).
It looked like the Pens were guilty of a penalty, Karlsson even skated all the way over to the penalty box only for a bewildered ref to ask what he was doing there. The penalty called ended up being on a Cane for closing his hand on the puck, sending Pittsburgh to yet another power play. After so many chances, they finally cash in. Jaccob Slavin breaks his stick and the Pens isolate against the further disadvantage when Egor Chinakhov passes through the suddenly open middle of the ice to Bryan Rust. Rust cuts into the right side and lifts the puck up and in the net. 2-1 Pens.
Carolina coach Rod Brind’Amour is going berserk on the bench after all this turn of events, and not without reason. The Canes charge down the ice and both teams come together in a scrum after the whistle. Noel Acciari and Alex Nikishin both go to the box for roughing minors.
The inevitable even up call comes, Andrei Svechnikov dumps the puck and jumps into Parker Wotherspoon and Wotherspoon picks up a penalty for..’holding’ they call it. Carolina gets some good looks on the 4v3, Skinner stands tall.
Close calls at both ends, hotly contested action and tempers are high, fun hockey game through two periods. Shots are 24-19 CAR, score is 2-1 PIT.
Third period
The Hurricanes get an early goal to tie the game with 17:11 left. Skinner stopped Mark Jankowski on the top of his left shoulder, the puck bounced to the feet of Connor Dewar but Jankowski got to it first and hacked the puck in to make it a 2-2 game.
Carolina takes the lead just over a minute later. Connor Clifton lost the puck on the wall and Seth Jarvis had all the open space to jet up the ice and zoom past Ilya Solovyov. Jarvis cut to his forehand and beat Skinner. 3-2 game.
Dan Muse uses his timeout to try and settle his team and slow the game down. It works, to an extent. The Pens look like they’re just holding on, shots at the first TV timeout of the third are 7-1 CAR (with two Hurricane goals).
The Pens get into penalty trouble, Ryan Shea goes off for cross-check. Wotherspoon takes his second trip to the box while shorthanded for 29 seconds worth of a 5v3.
Carolina takes their timeout to strategize, it pays off. They win the faceoff and control the puck, gradually closing down on the goal. A bunch of passes and Nikishin has an open net off a pass from Aho. 4-2 game.
Shea goes right back to the penalty box to hand Carolina another extended 5v3 opportunity, this time they couldn’t score but the clock drained out accordingly.
The Pens pull Skinner with over two minutes to go, they’re not going quietly. Bryan Rust throws a puck to the net, it hits Noel Acciari’s skate and jumps into the net. 4-3 game with 2:08 to go.
And don’t look now, but the comeback is completed. Goalie is pulled again, Carolina nearly scores but can’t do it. Play goes the other way, a shot gets thrown into the mixer and Bryan Rust gets the good luck for the puck to pop right to him. He quickly throws it into the net, 4-4 game with 36 seconds to go and the Penguins have made an unbelievable comeback to force overtime!
Overtime
Carolina gets the first chance but play goes the other way and Chinakhov hacks at it. Frederik Andersen just gets a shoulder on it to keep the puck out.
The teams trade chances, Mantha and Kindel get a 2-on-1 and Slavin has to latch onto Mantha’s drive to the net. Pittsburgh gets a 4v3 power play with 2:29 to play. They resort for a few low percentage backdoor plays for Rickard Rakell but don’t score.
Worse yet, the Hurricanes are sprung on a 2-on-0 as the power play ends. Or so they think, K’Andre Miller is about out of gas and he has the puck. He delays a little too long on his crossing pass and a sensational diving effort by Mantha breaks the play up.
Shootout
Jarvis is the first one up, he tries to deke back to the forehand but Skinner holds his ground and gets a skate to it.
Ben Kindel takes the first one for the Pens. He winds in slowly from the right, his low shot hits the stick of Andersen but has enough mustard to get in and score.
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Andrei Svechnikov takes his turn, comes in slowly, fakes a deke and scores on the forehand.
Chinakhov gets his chance to answer, he gets Andersen to sprawl and has the whole net open but misses wide.
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Jackson Blake leads Round 3, he takes a quick low shot that hits its mark.
It’s up to Mantha to keep the game alive, his backhand move is stopped. Pens fall in the shootout
Some thoughts
- Liked the way Soderblom played tonight, he had three shots on goal in the first period alone. Aside from just his big frame, he’s standing out by being able to get things going for a team that was getting piled on early. Then Soderblom sent a shot off the post in the second period. It looks like he’s close.
- In general, Soderblom with Ben Kindel and Avery Hayes was the best line of the night for Pittsburgh. They were able to turn the tide as much as any line the Pens had.
- Mantha’s career-high in goals in a season is 25. He just got his 24th tonight. What a story he’s been, his first period goal meant he had three of the last four goals from the whole team. The Pens badly needed someone to step up without 87 and 71, Mantha has certainly done his part to answer the call. It’s not like he wasn’t scoring earlier, it is standing out a little more now that he’s the leading scorer in the lineup and still able to keep it going.
- Another player to shine has been Chinakhov, though given his play over the past few weeks and months it’s more about simply continuing to play well than elevate. Even without the puck with his speed and tenacity he’s a player out there making a lot of good things happen. For having a great shot and good wheels, he’s not just a perimeter player, he’ll go hunt pucks and is willing to lean in physically when he has to.
- And, of course, Rust put his impact on this game by scoring the game-tying goal and basically scoring the goal a minute prior by having the shot hit Acciari in front. Have to have the best players step up in moments like that, the comeback revealed the not unexpected character of a guy like Rust to come through in crunch time.
- After getting four power plays in the first half of the game, the Pens really had to get something out of it. That wasn’t looking promising for a while, they got some good luck when a Carolina player broke his stick then took advantage of it to the fullest to exploit that weakness to create a goal scoring opportunity for Rust, which he cashed in. Well done there and given all the chances that they had they really needed it. Given how the rest of the game went, it wasn’t enough.
- Skinner did really well against Carolina back in December, and did well in this game too until the dam broke. Between his size, calmness and ability to track the puck he was handling it well. Some bad bounces and defenders couldn’t handle the pressure eventually. Even at the end of the game, Skinner robbed a player right in front on a great save with 3 or 4 minutes left. Looked like nothing important in the moment but it held the door open to steal a point. Shame he ended up conceding four goals, it was an admirable effort in net. By any account, the Pens didn’t deserve a result in this one, their goalie is a big reason they got one.
- Interesting the Pens went with Solovyov and Clifton as 2/3 of their 3v5 PK group coming out of a timeout. They didn’t have much choice given that Shea and Wotherspoon were both in the penalty box, but limited players against superior numbers weren’t enough of a match in that situation.
- Carolina did a very good job of selling calls in the third period. Little hooks and tugs at the body created some falls and throwing the body back. It was a level just below full out dives, and probably smart too. From the crowd to the coach, everyone was on the ref’s cases for all the early Penguin power plays. The Hurricane players made sure that would even back up.
- Sad state of affairs: needing to use Noel Acciari in a 6v5 situation. Funny state of affairs: Acciari is credited with a goal that hits him in front of the net.
- Sad state of affairs with no bright side: the Penguins in the shootout. Today was a cruel twist since they got a save at first (rare!) and then scored a goal themselves to start (even more rare!)…And then it all went down the drain. More awful stuff there. Looking back, that 4v3 powerplay in OT was the true chance to earn the win, that missed opportunity stings a lot too. The best way to not lose in a shootout is to end the game before it and they really gotta make that count.
- On the bright side though, after totally getting swamped in the first 17-18 minutes of the third period, the Pens showed a lot of moxie to comeback with two late desperation goals and earn something out of what looked like a lost cause. Very important stuff, especially since they’ll play this Carolina team two more times in the next two weeks.
The road trip rolls on with only a quick stop in Vegas before Thursday night’s game.