I got the idea for my silly title midway through the second period of last night’s game. The Penguins trailed St. Louis, 3-1. Casey DeSmith was leaking goals faster than the Titanic took on water after striking the iceberg, while Blues counterpart Jordan Binnington was doing his best Ebenezer Scrooge imitation.
In other words, our boys appeared to be sinking with nary a lifeboat in sight. I thought, surely our winning streak is dead.
Then came the second of two turning points. Coach Mike Sullivan judiciously yanked his foundering netminder in favor of Tristan Jarry, fresh off Covid protocol. If you listened closely, you could hear the sound of watertight doors slamming shut around PPG Paints Arena.
The initial turning point came moments earlier, at 12:20 of the second period to be exact. With his team down, 2-0, Sidney Crosby skated into the Blues’ zone, where he was rudely greeted by Niko Mikkola. Our captain responded with some stick work, which drew a like response from the hulking Blues defender. A full-blown skirmish ensued, with Sid trading crosschecks and gloved punches with his much larger foe. Players from both sides piled on.
The Pens’ competitive fuse was lit.
Bryan Rust promptly scored on a second-chance power play whack to trim the Blues’ lead to one. After DeSmith yielded a third goal to Colton Parayko 19 seconds later and was pulled like an abscessing tooth, the Pens really got down to business. No surprise that No. 87 led the way.
With just over four minutes remaining in the second period, Sid carried the puck into the Blues’ end and fed Rust with a picture perfect cross-slot pass. The Rusty Razor did the rest, ripping it past Binnington for his second goal of the night and fifth in two games.
At 12:23 of the third period Crosby notched the equalizer on a disputed goal. After skating out of a corner Sid, Mikkola and the puck arrived at the same instance, courtesy of a long-range shot by Jake Guentzel. Crosby bumped Binnington as he skated laterally through the crease and whipped the puck home. The Blues challenged, claiming goaltender interference. Replays showed that contact was made outside of the blue paint.
Good goal. Score knotted at 3-all. Pens on the power play, courtesy of the misguided challenge.
A dozen seconds later, Kris Letang set up Evan Rodrigues in his favored spot in the left circle. E-Rod stepped into the feed and blasted the puck past Binnington to stake the good guys to a 4-3 lead.
The “Grind Line” applied the icing on the cake…or plunged a dagger into the Blues’ comeback hopes, whichever you prefer. Teddy Blueger picked off a weak clearing attempt by Parayko and dished to Brock McGinn stationed to the left of the net. McGinn buried the biscuit…and the Blues.
Five-three Pens. A delicious win, our ninth in a row and against a tough opponent to boot.
Long live the streak.
Puckpourri
The Pens outshot the Blues, 41-29, and won 57 percent of the faceoffs.
Jarry stopped all 13 shots he faced in relief of DeSmith and earned the victory, his 16th of the season. Rust paced the Pens with three points (two goals and an assist). He has five goals and eight points over his past two games!
Sid had a goal and an assist, as did Rodrigues. Guenztel and Letang recorded two assists apiece. Tanger had nine shots on goal in 27:05 of ice time, both game highs, but did not earn a star. The honors went to Sid (1), E-Rod (2) and Rusty (3).
Blueger (an assist) and Brian Boyle returned to the lineup, displacing Radim Zohorna and Sam Lafferty, who was dealt to Chicago earlier in the day.
The Pens (19-8-5, 43 points) are presently in fourth place in the Metro, four points behind the Hurricanes and five points off the division lead. They hold an 11-point bulge over Philly, our foe this evening.
Rick & Horse
Although we want everyone to be scoring good teams have different players stepping up night
to night. I’ll take Zucker and Kapanen over Simon and ZAR any day of the week. This team is
playing great but still have a couple holes to fill if they want to have success in the playoffs.
Theirs a lot of games left to play and the guys that have it going now may not be the same
players that get it going down the stretch.
Rick – I do agree with you that Kapanen has a little float to his game and I do agree that it would
help both him and Zucker to be reunited with E-Rod.
Again I would say enjoy this ride but don’t get to excited it’s the regular season and games aren’t
a third as physical as they will be come playoff time.
Hey Mike,
To illustrate your point of regular season and playoff hockey being different more, over the last 3 playoff years, opponents have averaged 43, 38, and 43 hits per game against our waddling waterfowl and we got the backs of our front kicked each time as Sullivan’s softies folded under the weight of those hits. Currently, this regular season opponents are only averaging 25 hits per game.
It will be interesting to say the least to see how some of these players perform when time and space come at a premium. It will interesting to see how much energy they have after having to haul themselves off the ice 40 times a game. It will be interesting to see how many stupid penalties Simon and Letang will take during their inevitable hissy fits when they get tossed like a rag doll (Simon) or the ref doesn’t see the game the same way they do (Letang).
My last thing, sorry, but with DeSmith as a back-up, this team needs lots of Divine mercy to keep Jarry healthy just to get to the playoffs.
And need I remind everyone that Jarry had a great regular season last season too and then melted in the playoffs. If you want to argue that now, under Chiodo, he seems more poised and he hasn’t given up any of those soft over the short side shoulder goals that he, DeSmith, and Murray were wont to do while under Buckley – so I do have hope there, but want to see how he responds to playoff hockey before giving him a clean bill of health.
Sorry, but I would still trade off Letang, Rust, Zucker, and Kapanen and probably even E-Rod while and/or when the opportunity is present.
I really like this Penguin team. This comment has nothing to do with this article. It is a statement I would like to make. Imagine how good the Penguins would be if Kapanen and or Zucker would contribute in even a small amount. These 2 have to be among the biggest disappointments in the history of the team.
Great to hear from you Horse.
Funny…I really liked last year’s team and thought we had a legit shot at going a few rounds (darn Islanders). Although I know Hextall’s hands were tied to a great extent, I was very disappointed at losing Ceci, McCann and Tanev (and Gaudreau) over the summer. Nor was I thrilled with the guys Hextall brought in as replacements.
But my word, are Heinen, McGinn and Rodrigues playing well. Not to mention Chad Ruhwedel, who’s done a really solid job on the third pairing and PK. Even Dominik Simon’s doing what he’s supposed to do…drive possession. And what can you say about Crosby, Guentzel, Letang and Rust? They’ve been great.
This group has really come together as a team…you’ve got to give a ton of credit to Sullivan, Hextall and…of course…the players themselves.
I hear ya about Zucker and Kapanen. I like the former’s grit and spunk…just wish he would contribute something…anything. Reminds me so much of David Perron when he was here. Kapanen…oy. There’s a lot of float in him. I’m hoping against hope that skating with Malkin will rekindle his game. Short, of that perhaps he and Zucker will find their way back on a line with Rodrigues when everything shakes out. They were really effective together and showed great chemistry.
Anyway…a long-winded way of saying I like this team, too.
Rick