To borrow from the movie Princess Bride, the Penguins showed last night that they’re only “mostly dead,” which is a lot different from “all dead” according to Billy Crystal’s character, Miracle Max.
Indeed, the Pens conjured up a few miracles of their own while prevailing over the Utah Hockey Club by a 3-2 count in overtime at the Delta Center.
Miracle No. 1: we awoke like Sleeping Beauty following a somnambulant first period that saw us register just four shots on goal and trail 1-0 on a power-play rocket by Mikhail Sergachev.
Marcus Pettersson drew us even at 6:40 of the second period with an uncharacteristic bomb of his own from center point. Ah, but these are our Penguies (i.e.: can’t stand prosperity). Two minutes later, Michael Corleone…er…Carcone blew into our zone on a breakaway with Erik Karlsson in pursuit, courtesy of a fabulous lead pass from ex-Pen John Marino.
Alex Nedeljkovic stopped Carcone’s initial shot from the slot, but a second-chance opportunity slipped through Ned’s pads and in.
Two-one, bad guys.
It was almost 3-1 moments later when Karlsson turned the puck over to Pittsburgh native Logan Cooley. Thankfully, Pettersson was in position to get his stick on the puck, causing it to hop in the air. Cooley swung for the fences and made solid contact, baseball-style, but Ned held his ground and made a game-saving stop.
Miracle No. 2: at 6:17 of the third period, Karlsson was actually on the receiving end of a turnover! The quicksilver defenseman glided unchecked to the right circle and beat Utah goalie Connor Ingram with a top-shelf bullet to knot the score at 2-all.
Miracle No. 3: the Pens didn’t allow the go-ahead goal, immediately or otherwise. With 66 seconds left in overtime (how appropriate), Sidney Crosby streaked off the bench, scooped up a drop pass from Cody Glass, then proceeded to slice through the crease and beat Ingram with a far-side backhander. Which leads me to…
Miracle No. 4: we won a game for only the third time when trailing after two periods.
Hey, as they say, third time’s a charm.
Puckpourri
It was pretty much the Sid ‘n’ Ned Show. While our captain paced the attack with a goal and a helper, Neddy stopped 27 of 29 shots for a .931 save percentage. Over his past five starts, the battling netminder has a sterling .930 save percentage.
In the latest version of the Mike Sullivan Shuffle, Blake Lizotte, Jesse Puljujärvi and Pierre-Olivier Joseph returned to the lineup. Matt Nieto, Ryan Shea and, surprisingly, Philip Tomasino sat.
Frankly, I was borderline stunned to see heavyweight Boko Imama keep his spot in the lineup. Boko had an early tilt with UHC toughie Liam O’Brien, then pretty much watched the rest of the game from the bench (a total of seven shifts).
Typical Sully treatment of a player he doesn’t like (see Reaves, Ryan). Following a solid debut (with 8:52 TOI), Boko’s ice time dropped to 5:27 against the Sharks and down to last night’s ridiculously low 3:41.
I get the distinct impression our coach is being instructed to play Imama against his wishes by a certain higher-up. (If so, good for Kyle Dubas.)
The POJ-Ryan Graves defensive pair actually held up okay (no goals against). Wish we could see more shots from Karlsson like the one he scored on.
The Pens (21-24-8, 50 points) finished the road trip with a 3-4 mark. We’re currently five points out of the second Eastern Conference wild-card spot, but don’t get too excited. The teams currently tied for that spot, the Lightning and CBJ, have four and three games in hand, respectively. (See above reference to “mostly dead.”)
Farm Fresh
A little good news from the farm to balance the shroud engulfing the parent club.
Ville Koivunen (four) and Vasily Ponomarev (a hat trick) combined for seven (count ‘em…seven) goals for the Baby Pens during last night’s 9-0 pounding of the Hershey Bears.
Both figure to be promoted, if not later this season, certainly the next.
At the opposite end of the ice, rookie Sergei Murashov posted the shutout. The Russian wunderkind has a .950 save percentage in four AHL games.
A little hope for the future!