With their season and playoff hopes absolutely on the brink, the Penguins pulled together and drubbed the Red Wings at PPG Paints Arena last night, 6-3. In the process, keeping their flickering playoff hopes on life support.
Both teams had played the day before, but you’d never have guessed it, at least on the part of our Pens. Fully grasping the gravity of the situation, we raced out of the starting blocks while piling up an early 16-3 edge in shots on goal and 1-0 lead on a tally that deflected in off Reilly Smith.
The Wings counterpunched at 15:39 on a wicked wrister from between the circles by Lucas Raymond.
Given our dominance, going into the first intermission with the scored knotted at 1-all would’ve been a letdown for our boys. Fortunately, a player who’s been MIA from the scoresheet of late stepped up with a huge goal. With 67 seconds left in the period Sidney Crosby followed up a rare rush by Ryan Graves and struck on a backhander from the slot to restore our lead.
Following our captain’s lead, the Lars Eller line hounded the Red Wings with a heavy forecheck on the ensuing shift. Smith sent a beautiful pass from behind the net to Valtteri Puustinen inside the right circle. The peppery rookie ripped past Alex Lyon to put the Pens up 3-1.
The march of the Penguins continued unabated in the second period. Midway through the frame, Evgeni Malkin fed Puustinen, who unleashed a bullet from the right circle. Lyon made the initial save, but couldn’t control the rebound. Typifying his all-out-approach, Michael Bunting dove to the ice and swatted the loose puck past the Wings’ goalie.
Four-one, Pens.
Capitalizing in a lull in our coverage, Wings forward Christian Fischer struck from the slot on a bumper play at 17:35 to pare our lead to two. But Michael Rasmussen got caught with his hand in Mike Lange’s cookie jar 59 seconds before the horn. Emerging as a power-play wizard, Eller tipped home Sid’s exquisitely placed shot-pass to give us a 5-2 lead after 40 minutes of play.
A tripping penalty to Drew O’Connor opened the door for the Wings with less than five minutes to go. With Lyon pulled to provide a 6-on-4 advantage, Raymond banged in his second goal of the game, in the process injecting a little drama into the proceedings.
With Lyon riveted to the Detroit bench, the next few minutes turned into a cavalcade of black-and-gold misfires at the empty Wings net before O’Connor finally did the honors with 26 seconds to play.
Huge win for our Pens. Simply huge.
Puckpourri
The Pens held sway in shot attempts (75-63), shots on goal (38-28), scoring chances (33-28) and high-danger chances (16-9) according to Natural Stat Trick.
Quite suddenly, Mike Sullivan appears to have hit on four solid lines. The O’Connor-Crosby-Bryan Rust trio and the Smith-Eller-Puustinen unit have been especially good.
How great was it to see Sid snap his 11-game goal-scoring drought, the longest of his career. With points in three-straight games, he appears to be emerging from his funk. A good thing, because we need him now more than ever.
Likewise, Kris Letang seemed to settle down after a string of difficult games. Tanger assisted on Eller’s goal and logged a game-high 27:16 of ice time.
It’s an absolute delight to see Puustinen emerging as a bona fide NHLer. The kid brings a ton of speed and juice and he can really fire the biscuit. I can’t overstate what a little youthful enthusiasm brings to the mix.
Same goes for O’Connor, a force on the forecheck.
Speaking of juice, how about Bunting? With his hard-scrabble style and sled-dog tenacity, he’s providing a spark, not to mention timely goals. Just what the doctor ordered.
Despite the lopsided score, it wasn’t necessarily an easy game between the pipes for Alex Nedeljkovic, who didn’t see much rubber early. Ned kept his focus and made the saves he needed to make.
In the perception-doesn’t-always-equal-reality department, going by the eye test most folks (including yours truly) seem to feel Graves has had a rough first season in the ‘Burgh. Yet the rangy defender ranks 24th out of 199 NHL defensemen who’ve played at least 500 minutes in fewest 5v5 goals against/60 minutes!
Guess who’s ranked 192nd? Ex-Pen and current Devil John Marino.
Jake Guentzel scored his first goal for Carolina during the ‘Canes 7-2 whupping of the Sens. The first of many I’ll wager.
On Deck
The Pens (30-28-9, 69 points) don’t have an easy path this week. We visit the sputtering Devils (32-32-4, 68 points) Tuesday night, then hit the road to tangle with Western Conference heavies Dallas (Friday) and Colorado (Sunday).
Incredibly, although we’ve been buried more times than Lazarus we’re still in the playoff hunt…albeit by the hair of our chinny-chin-chins. We trail the skidding Wings by five points in the chase for the final wild card spot.
Realistically, we probably need to go something like 11-4 or 10-5 in our last 15 games to make it. A tall order indeed. Yet, remarkably, the current group is showing signs of jelling.
Is it too little too late?
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Hi Rick,
Another bust after a triumph over the Red Wings. After the 3rd period collapse by the Pens at Jersey, 7 back with 14 games to go. Beating Dallas and Colorado is a steep climb. Once again Geno takes a bonehead penalty to break a tie and the 3rd period is well what it has been all season. A nightmare. The D is a mess. The Chinese fire drill to protect Graves inept performance isn't working. Karllson is almost as bad. And with Letang's major blunders every few games, it is starting to look like the Titanic. The D is swiss cheese. No blocking out in front of the net. Half arse back check coverage. The question is when are they going to get rid of the Sullivan Regime??? This is painful as a Pen's fan.