Calgary Flickers but Penguins Win in OT

For the first 10 minutes of the game last night the Calgary Flames dominated our Locals. They were out-shooting the black and gold 10 – 1; scoring at 7:34 of the 1st Period, on their 7th shot. After tying up the puck in the Penguins’ defensive zone, Dillon Dube slipped, unopposed, down the slot and ripped a wrist shot into a wide-open short side.

Fortunately, our favorite flightless fowl were only playing Calgary and they flamed out. After, that lopsided opening 10 minutes, the Visitors only managed 24 more shots to our Penguins 37. By the time Jake Guentzel closed out the scoring with but 56 ticks left on the Over Time (OT) clock, the Home team held a 38 to 34 shot advantage.

Last night’s game also saw Alex Galchenyuk score his first goal as a Penguin. On the final rush of a Power Play (PP) Jared McCann flicked a backhand pass across the blue line to a streaking Dominik Kahun who was barely on side. Flying down the Left Wing (LW), Kahun whipped a wrist shot on goal that Calgary Goalie David Rittich couldn’t handle cleanly. The huge rebound came back up the slot too fast for McCann to make a play on, but not for Galchenyuk, who was circling in on his off wing; he rifled the biscuit into the net before Rittich could get back in front.

Let’s hope this gets the monkey off Galchenyuk’s back.

Calgary looked at the play closely to see if they had an off-side challenge, but at least the TV replay appeared to show Kahun was clearly on side, so the Flames Coach, saved his challenge.

There was also a little controversy over whether the Goal was a PPG or an Even Strength Goal (EVG). At first the official scorer called it an EVG but later changed it to a PPG.

McCann and Galchenyuk teamed up again at 7:14 of the 2nd frame to put Pittsburgh up 2 – 1. Marcus Pettersson made a good play to keep the puck in at the left point, wrapping it back around to the right corner. Brandon Tanev pressured the Flames defense enough to get them to cough up the puck. Galchenyuk, tapped the puck over to McCann and the red-hot McCann shot a laser of a wrist shot off a defender’s leg and past Rittich, over his glove hand.

Tanev didn’t get credit for an assist on the play but his work in the corner was instrumental on the play.

Zach Trotman took a tripping penalty against Andrew Mangiapane a little over 7 minutes later, opening a door for the Visitors to slip back into the game. It took 21 seconds for Sean Monahan to convert that opportunity. Johnny Gaudreau found Monahan alone in front of Tristan Jarry but Monahan missed the open cage, wide to Jarry’s right, on his first attempt. Matthew Tkachuk pounced on the puck and fed it back to Monahan for a 2nd try. With Jarry lying face down on the ice, Monahan made no mistake the second time around, shooting over the fallen Penguin’s goalie.

After a scoreless 3rd Period and a several shots, missed shots, and blocked shots by both teams, Kahun at the end of his shift, out skating a fresher Flames team found Guentzel open at the Flames blue line. Guentzel drove in on the LW and blew a wrist shot past Rittich low to the glove side.

Jarry ended the game with 32 saves.

Guentzel’s late game heroics drew our hometown heroes to within 1 point of 3rd place in the Metropolitan Division and kept them 1 point ahead of the Philadelphia Flyers.

There is little time to rest this week, tomorrow night the Vancouver Canucks come to town for a tilt. Game time is 7pm. Then, after a day off for Thanksgiving, our boys of winter are on the road for back-to-back games against the Columbus Blue Jackets Friday night and then the St. Louis Blues Saturday, 8pm. With Galchenyuk on the scoreboard maybe we can get 2 lines rolling and ride through the week.

Go Pens!!!!!!

Note –  The above article was amended. The original article cited Keith Tkachuck, Matthew’s father as the player who passed the puck to Monahan. Thanks to Jorenz for picking up on my typo.