Penguins Rally Behind Crosby and Letang: Hunt Down Panthers

For the better part of 55 minutes it looked like one of those nights for our Pittsburgh Penguins. You know. Second of back-to-back games. On the road, to boot. Tired legs. No puck luck.

Then…BLAM. In a volcanic display of skill, Sidney Crosby and Kris Letang erupted for three goals in just over six minutes to stun the Florida Panthers and snatch a sweet 3-2 victory from the jaws of almost certain defeat.

“Those two guys, I thought, put the team on their backs tonight,” coach Mike Sullivan said. “They raised their level at a critical time in the game.”

Skating without superstar Evgeni Malkin and a host of injured forwards, the depleted Pens struggled to keep pace with their hosts. Florida outshot the visitors 20-9 during the first period and snatched an early lead on a power-play goal by former Pen Jussi Jokinen.

Doing his best to hold the surging Panthers in check, unsung hero Jeff Zatkoff (42 saves) made key stops on Jaromir Jagr, Quinton Howden and Vincent Trocheck. But when Alexander Barkov struck for a shorthanded tally midway through the final period—the second allowed by the black and gold in two nights—it looked like curtains for our boys.

Then the Pens’ dynamic duo exploded. At 14:56 of the final frame Crosby outworked Dmitry Kulikov along the wall, losing a glove in the process. Nonplussed, he spun and fed Letang near the left faceoff circle with a nifty cross-ice pass. “Tanger” beat fellow All-Star Roberto Luongo with a sizzling one-timer between the pads to slice Florida’s lead in half.

Crosby’s bare-knuckled assist marked the 900th point of his illustrious career and extended his points streak to 10 games—the third longest in the league this season.

Turns out, No. 87 was just heating up. Flashing his extraordinary hand-eye coordination, the Pens’ captain redirected a Letang blast past Luongo with just over a minute left in regulation to knot the score at 2-2 and set the stage for the dramatic overtime winner. One that propelled the black and gold past the Devils and Islanders and into third place in the tightly contested Metro Division.

With Jokinen serving a hooking penalty, Crosby again found Letang in the left circle with a picture-perfect pass.

“I saw them kind of pushing with two guys, so it opened the back door,” No. 58 explained. “He [Sid] made a great play.”

The quicksilver defenseman ripped Crosby’s tape-to-tape feed past Luongo to seal the improbable comeback and set off an emotional celebration.

“We can win no matter what,” Zatkoff said in the triumphant Pens locker room. “That’s what happened tonight. We got one with [approximately five minutes left in regulation] and we just kept going.”