Caps Capitulate, Penguins Triumph Thanks to Late Malkin Heroics

Some teeth might be missing. The manes might not be as lustrous and full as they once were. Some mange may have set in, too. But the Penguins and Capitals still know how to bring it.

In a battle between two aging Metro lions at PPG Paints Arena last night, our Pens roared the loudest. Sparked by a pair of goals from unexpected sources and a typically gritty 31-save effort by Casey DeSmith, our Pens put the bite on the visiting Caps, 4-3.

Typical of Pens-Caps matchups, the contest featured plenty of passion and riveting end-to-end action. Lots of storylines, too, including redemption for a disgraced foot soldier, a dramatic comeback (albeit by the wrong team) and late-game heroics to save the day. Even a fight that didn’t involve DC marauder Tom Wilson.

The Pens carried the play through a scoreless first period and well into the second. Near the midpoint of the game DeSmith made a spectacular left-pad save on John Carlson from the left dot on a 2-on-1 to keep the Caps off the board.

Moments later the Pens drew first blood. Danton Heinen sprang Ryan Poehling with a pretty lead pass and the former first-round pick did the rest. Turning on the jets, Poehling blew around Rasmus Sandin and smoked Darcy Kuemper top shelf to make it 1-0. Sparkling play and goal.

As for that redemption? At 12:17 Chad Ruhwedel, who’s worn the goat horns in two recent losses, took a lead pass from Jason Zucker and beat Kuemper again high glove side before bumping into a Caps defender and crashing into the end boards a la Beau Bennett. His teammates, obviously overjoyed, scooped Chad up and escorted him to the bench.

DeSmith kept it a 2-0 game with a spectacular spread-eagled left-toe stop on Alex Ovechkin with time winding down in the period.

Twenty-seven seconds into the third, Jake Guentzel walked in alone on Kuemper and beat the besieged goalie beneath the left pad to give us a seemingly insurmountable 3-0 lead.

Ah…but these are our Penguies, remember? No lead is safe…no matter how large.

And so it was last night. Following a near-miss on a put-away try by Guentzel, the aforementioned Wilson…no one-dimensional thug…banged the puck past DeSmith from the doorstep at 5:19 following a Kris Letang flub to cut our lead to two.

Then came the obligatory dumb penalty, with Poehling picking up a tripping minor at 13:14. It took all of four seconds for the Caps to…uh…capitalize, as Ovechkin overpowered DeSmith with a blast from the top of the left circle. Not to make a Captain Obvious statement, but Dear Lord can Ovi shoot the puck!

Cue the inevitable black-and-gold collapse. With less than three minutes remaining and DeSmith and our overmatched ‘d’ falling like dominoes, Dylan Strome swung around the cage and backhanded the puck into our largely vacated net.

Yet another blown lead in a season of soul-crushing blown leads.

Fortunately, a white knight would charge in on his steed to save our bacon. With time ticking down to 80 seconds on the scoreboard clock, Evgeni Malkin picked Anthony Mantha’s pocket, raced in alone on Kuemper and beat the stunned netminder with a perfectly placed bullet just above the right pad and below the blocker.

The crowd went bonkers. (So did I!)

Not the way Mike Sullivan would draw it up on the white board, I’m sure. But a win, is a win, is a win, especially against the Caps and especially at this time of the year.

Puckpourri

The Pens had the better of the play early, the Caps late. According to Natural Stat Trick, our foes had the upper hand in shot attempts (69-64), scoring chances (43-33) and high-danger chances (20-19). The good guys led in shots on goal by a 40-34 margin.

It was a bit of an Ugly Betty win for DeSmith, who lost his net on two of the three Caps goals. But in the end Casey got ‘er done.

Malkin’s goal, his second of the month, earned him top-star honors. Number 71 extended his home-ice points streak to nine games. Overall, Geno’s tallied points in nine of his last 12 games.

Poehling snapped an eight-game goalless drought. Ruhwedel’s goal was his first of the season and first since last April 23. Heinen very quietly has tallied three goals and nine points in his last 17 games, including four games of limited ice time.

If the future of the human race depended on someone scoring a goal, I’d want Ovechkin to take the shot. Thirty-seven years old and he’s still got a howitzer.

Not to pick on a guy when he’s down, but my goodness has Mantha been a disappointment for the Caps. A huge (literally at 6’5” and 234 pounds) trade deadline acquisition a couple of seasons ago, he had the makings of an elite power forward earlier in his career with Detroit but has fallen on hard times in DC.

As for that fight I mentioned? Josh Archibald dropped the gloves with Sandin at 17:03 of the second period and hammered the bigger Caps’ defender with a volley of hard rights to deliver a beat down. I honestly can’t remember the last time a Penguin actually won a fight. Ryan Reaves or Jamie Oleksiak back in 2018?

Don’t look now, but recent castoffs Kasperi Kapanen and Teddy Blueger are lighting it up for their new teams. Kappy enjoyed a three-point night (2+1) in a win over Anaheim and now has six goals and nine points in 13 games with the Blues. Blueger has a pair of goals and five points in a dozen games for the Golden Knights.

On Tap

The Pens (36-27-10, 82 points) travel to the Motor City to take on the Red Wings (31-32-9, 71 points) on Tuesday night before returning home to face Nashville, Boston and Philly. Hope it’s not another trap game a la the recent loss to Montreal.

With the victory, we open up a three-point bulge on Florida in the race for the second Eastern wild-card spot, one point behind the Islanders.

The defeat all but eliminates the Caps from the playoff race.