Bryan Rust scored 1:31 into overtime to lift the Pittsburgh Penguins to a 5-4 victory over the Florida Panthers, thwarting a furious comeback effort by the Cardiac Cats, who rallied from a three-goal, third period deficit to earn a point on the road.
After a blanking the Carolina Hurricanes on Saturday, Spencer Knight struggled. The 23-year-old surrendered the five goals on just 16 shots. He did manage to keep the Penguins off the board for the final 16:15 of the third while Matthew Tkachuk, who had a hand in all of Florida’s goals, was busy dragging his team to overtime, so that’s something…
Shortly after a Jesper Boqvist tally was wiped off the board due to Anton Lundell being offsides, Owen Pickering opened the scoring for real, notching his first goal in the NHL at the 9:20 mark. Blake Lizotte drove the puck up the boards to Pickering and his shot from the left point, with Michael Bunting providing a screen, eluded Knight.
The Penguins would go up by two 1:12 later. Philip Tomasino claimed a Niko Mikkola turnover in the neutral zone and fed Drew O’Connor, who quickly centered it back. Tomasino touched O’Connor’s return pass behind his back over to a wide-open Evgeni Malkin and the still-deadly veteran made no mistake.
Florida tilted the ice and were finally rewarded with 2:36 left in the first frame. A hard-working Aleksander Barkov got the puck back to Dmitry Kulikov at the left point and his subsequent shot hit the captain in the skates. Barkov collected the puck and sent a short pass to Tkachuk and he wired a wrister home from the right circle by Tristan Jarry.
Despite getting out-shot 11-5, Pittsburgh got the only goal of the second period when Matt Grzelcyk missed way wide from the left point and the puck caromed off the end boards to Kris Letang on the opposite side, and he beat Knight from a sharp angle at 6:54. Lizotte drew the secondary helper for his second point of the night.
Things got worse 3:45 into the third. Following a Richard Rakell shot block, Sidney Crosby rushed into the Florida zone before pulling up and finding the trailing Marcus Pettersson. Pettersson curled his way by Jesper Boqvist to the net and then switched to his forehand to go upstairs on Knight. Bad job of containing by Boqvist and Gustav Forsling put himself in a poor position to help out. This one wasn’t Knight’s fault.
The elder Boqvist would redeem himself 3:10 later when he got the puck back from Tkachuk below the goal line and his centering attempt from in close bounced off the side of the net to Sam Bennett, who settled and sniped Jarry from the middle of the slot. That’s goals in four straight games for Yosemite Sam.
Florida cut deeper into the Penguins lead at 8:58. After collecting Jesper’s dump into the left corner, Tkachuk worked his way past several Penguins (and had his first pass attempt blocked) on his way through the slot to the edge of the right circle, where he fed back across to Adam Boqvist, who lit the lamp for the second straight game by whipping in a wrister that Jarry had no chance of stopping.
The Panthers would take advantage of their only power-play chance to knot the score with 8:33 remaining in regulation. After Letang knocked the puck from low to high, it came to Aaron Ekblad at right point and he snapped off a shot the Tkachuk deflected into the post. The rebound found Tkachuk and he deposited it into the back of the net, earning his team a point.
Unfortunately, the Penguins would win it 91 seconds into the extra session. Bryan Rust would decide to shoot on a 2-on-1 with Erik Karlsson and he solved Knight’s glove to extend Pittsburgh’s winning streak to four games. Malkin started the play off by separating the puck from Bennett in the other end.
A frustrating result for the Panthers, who were the better team, but still found a way to lose to opportunistic Penguins. A lack of finish during the first forty minutes (where they had a combined 24 shots on goal), some uncharacteristic mistakes both physical and mental, and a rocky performance from Knight conspired to turn what should be a four-game winning streak into a four-game point streak. More attention to detail will be needed on Thursday when the Cats face the Philadelphia Flyers.
Emperors & Snares
- After scoring Florida’s first goal late in the opening frame, Matthew Tkachuk completely took over the game during a 4:32 span of the third period where scored again and added two helpers. Tkachuk’s secondary assist on Sam Bennett’s goal was the 600th point of his career. He finished the night with 602, earning Second Star honors from the media.
- A lack of hustle by Anton Lundell kept Tristan Jarry from surrendering a goal on what would’ve been the fourth shot of the game that he faced, which would have been the eighth time in his nine starts this season of giving up a goal within the first five SOGs. Let off the hook, Jarry went on to stop 37 of 41 shots.
- Spencer Knight became the 150th different goalie Evgeni Malkin has scored against. Alex Ovechkin (178) and Crosby (150) are the only active players to have scored on as many goalies.
- Speaking of Crosby, his assist on Marcus Pettersson’s goal was his 1,022nd in the NHL, leaving him one away from tying Gordie Howe for the fifth most by a player with a single franchise.
- Aleksander Barkov assist on Tkachuk’s first goal gave Florida’s captain points in 13 of his last 15 games. Barkov was credited with three shots, four hits and a block in his 19:18 of ice time.
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