Pittsburgh Penguins News – Pens win 3rd straight
The Pittsburgh Penguins won their 3rd game in a row – That is in the books. But what looked like an easy outing against a low seeded Buffalo team became more of a challenge than expected.
The Pens started this game big, scoring in the first minute of the first period when, off a line change, Sidney Crosby took Ben Lovejoy‘s pass across the blue line and Pascal Dupuis forced his way between two Sabres defensemen to knock Crosby’s rebound in the net. It was Dupuis’ first goal of the season and first since Nov. 14, 2014 and it showed on his reaction. Dupuis looked comfortable on Crosby’s wing making his presence felt in front of Chad Johnson‘s net. It was as though he didn’t miss any action this past year.
That line of Dupuis-Crosby-Hornqvist created good scoring chances and were on the Sabres back for a good portion of the first period. For the first time of the season, it looked as though Crosby was feeling comfortable with his line mates winning battles along the boards and feeding them with some nice passes. It’s that kind of effort that led to the Pens second goal of the game and Hornqvist’s first tally of the season. Olli Maatta kept the play alive at the blue line and Crosby worked hard near the boards and fed a perfect backhand pass to Hornqvist who one-timed it and gave the Pens a 2-0 lead.
Everything seemed under control then but the Penguins started to lose puck battles around the net and create turnovers in the last quarter of the first period. All it took was 2:15 minutes to the Sabres to tie the game on Jamie McGinn and Nicolas Deslauriers‘ goals and it was back to square one.
Malkin Takes Care of Business for the Pittsburgh Penguins
Mandatory Credit: Charles LeClaire-USA TODAY Sports
Evgeni Malkin is a beast on the ice as of late and he’s playing as if the playoffs were just around the corner. He’s working hard defensively too giving a helping hand in his own zone. Ever since coach Mike Johnston changed his lines combinations, Malkin has found chemistry with Phil Kessel and the two have created tons of chances again tonight. Malkin was responsible for Ben Lovejoy’s fist goal of the season. Lovejoy ended up with the puck after leaving the penalty box and gave it to Malkin who passed it back. All Lovejoy had to do is put his own rebound in the net. Then, Malkin scored what was going to be the game-winning power-play goal at 14:57 of the second period when he took Phil Kessel’s rebound and used his right skate to put the puck on his stick and he buried one in. The big Russian centre is certainly at the top of his game right now.
The Results of Back-to-Back Games
The Pens needed to play strong for Jeff Zatkoff and knew the Sabres would come hard in the third. And hard they came. It certainly didn’t help that they were playing a second game in two nights, but the Penguins appeared tired and out of sync in the third period. Passes weren’t connecting and we saw too many turnovers.
Buffalo bombarded Zatkoff with 24 shots in the third while Pittsburgh shot only 4 times on the Sabres net. Matt Moulson scored on the Sabres 49th shot with the extra attacker on the ice. Then, Kris Letang got a delay of game penalty for clearing the puck over the glass with less than 2 minutes to play. But the Penguins didn’t panic, the PK was excellent, Jeff Zatkoff made a couple of huge saves to stop 50 of the 53 shots he’s faced and they held on to win their 3rd straight and spoil Dan Bylsma‘s return to Pittsburgh.
Pens will try to make it 4 in a row on Halloween night at Air Canada Centre visiting the Toronto Maple Leafs. Game starts at 7:00 PM.
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