With the season threatening to slip through our collective fingers like grains of sand traversing an hour glass, the Penguins turned the tide last night at the Bell Center and throttled the decimated and demoralized Canadiens 6-0. In the process halting an ugly three-game skid.
Captain Sidney Crosby led the way. Gradually working his way back to form following offseason wrist surgery and a bout with Covid, Sid scored just 3:36 into the contest to stake the Pens to an all-important lead. The goal was vintage Crosby, as he converted following a dazzling bit of tic-tac-toe passing by linemates Jake Guentzel and Bryan Rust.
There’s an old adage about never letting a foe who’s down get back up, and the Pens accordingly showed no mercy to their crippled hosts. At 12:38, Danton Heinen notched a rare power-play goal on a snipe through traffic, in the process snapping a personal seven-game goalless drought. He seems to specialize in stealth goals where he sneaks in behind the play.
Guentzel closed out the first-period scoring with 48 tics left, sweeping home an off-balance wrister from the top of the right circle. Jake extended his goal-scoring streak to three games and his points streak to four.
The Pens continued to pour it on in the second frame. Teddy Blueger struck for the first of two goals on the night, ripping home a short feed from Zach Aston-Reese on a jail-break rush at 13:49 to run the score to 4-0. Less than three minutes later the “Grind Line” struck again on a marvelous redirect by Brock McGinn, his second tip-in goal of the season. Perhaps something for the coaching staff to keep in mind as they search for power-play options.
Blueger capped the scoring blitz with 11 seconds left in the contest on a breakaway, victimizing Habs relief netminder Sam Montembeault with an absolutely filthy bit of shake and bake.
For one night anyway, our guys looked like world-beaters, although I need to caution that most of our goals came on wide-open looks.
Let’s see if it lasts.
Puckpourri
The black and gold ruled virtually every statistical category, including shot attempts (67-50), shots on goal (43-24) and faceoffs (55 percent). We’re seventh in the league in 5v5 Shot Attempts Percentage (52.8).
With a combined six points, plus-10 and 60.71 Corsi, the Blueger line was dominant. So was the Heinen-Evan Rodrigues–Dominik Simon trio (78.95 Corsi). However, Sid’s line was underwater (43.48) and Jeff Carter’s unit with Jason Zucker and Kasperi Kapanen positively cratered (29.17).
Tristan Jarry stopped all 24 shots he faced to earn his eighth career shutout, but did not earn a game star. Those honors went to Blueger (1st), Guentzel (2nd) and Montreal native Kris Letang (3rd), who registered an assist and a plus-three.
Eleven different Pens recorded points. Blueger paced the attack with a three-point effort (2+1), followed by Guentzel (1+1), John Marino, Aston-Reese and Rust with two points apiece.
The Canadiens played without seven regulars, including captain Shea Weber and goalies Carey Price and Jake Allen.
The Pens are 3-1-2 under Todd Reirden and 3-5-2 with Mike Sullivan behind the bench for a combined record of 6-6-4. After 16 games last season we were 9-6-1 and just beginning to turn the corner following a sluggish start. We went on to win the division.
The locals are presently in seventh place in the Metro, seven points out of a guaranteed playoff berth and two points from a wild card spot. Up next, the streaking Maple Leafs, winners of five games in a row and 10 of their last 11.
