Pregame
The Penguins make some changes from yesterday, Elmer Soderblom and Ilya Solovyov are in for Justin Brazeau (injured) and Connor Clifton. A couple of lines are changed, including Ryan Shea back with Kris Letang. Arturs Silovs gets the start.
The visiting Boston Bruins have this lineup for today.
First period
It’s a good start for the Penguins, who spend a lot of time in the offensive zone, mostly mucking around in the corners. Egor Chinakhov takes an offensive zone penalty and Boston cashes in on the power play. Shea skates out to the point trying to get once-loose puck out but Boston holds it in. That stresses the PK’s defensive structure and a few quick passes later leads to a Pavel Zacha one-timer from the right. Silovs opened up on the lateral movement and Boston is on the board first.
Noel Acciari gets a chance in the last minute in front of the net but is stopped by Korpisalo to bookend a chance Acciari, while falling, had at an open net to start the period. Arguably the two best chances for Pittsburgh all period but no finishes.
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Shots are 9-9 after one, Boston scoring on the lone power play of the period ends up being the difference after 20 minutes.
Second period
The game grinds along, neither team has many shots in the first half of the second period. Kris Letang has reason to be frustrated and wound tight after some rough play, Mikey Eyssimont tangles with Letang at the front of the net after a whistle and both wrestle around for a long while, it looked like Letang was putting a UFC choke on him or something. Both get two minute minors for roughing, well-earned considering how long they had to rumble.
The extra open ice leads to more chances, Soderblom gets a good look but Korpisalo is there. Boston is able to shrug that off and score again, from Pavel Zacha again. This time a top shelf backhand shot finds its mark. 2-0 Boston.
Another set of scoring chances at each end, and another backbreaker for the Pens. Erik Karlsson danced down to the front of the net, he had some space upstairs but lifted the puck a little too high to hit it. At the other end, disaster strikes. Silovs misplays the puck right to David Pastrnak, which is probably the last player in this entire game you want to see the goalie hand a puck to outside of his crease. Pastrnak’s shot on the wrap attempt wasn’t even going on goal until the scrambling Silovs accidentally knocks it into his own net. Woof. 3-0.
With the game quickly fading from them, the Pens muster a goal. It comes on a 5v3 after two minor penalties to Boston. Egor Chinakhov loads up and fires a shot from distance. 3-1.
Well, the Pens scored a goal on Korpisalo for the first time in five periods, dating back to last week’s shutout by the Boston goalie. That first crack in the armor ended up being more meaningful than it first looked at the time as the third period illustrated.
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Third period
Solovyov had taken a penalty late in the period to give Boston a ton of carryover time, Silovs makes a couple big saves to help kill it off.
After putzing around a bit more, the Pens strike out of now where. A long stretch pass is sent up for Connor Dewar. (Luckily the refs are better than yesterday and don’t whistle it dead), Dewar has his back to the goalie and just hacks at the backhand. Korpisalo drops, the puck goes over him and in. It’s 3-2 with 13:58 to go and Pittsburgh has life.
So much so, they score again 35 seconds late. The Bruins are the team that gets caught in transition for once, Tommy Novak hits Anthony Mantha for a mini-breakaway. Mantha tries his classic fake shot to five hole move, it works this time. 3-3 game just like that.
Marco Sturm uses Boston’s head coach to regroup and try to kill the momentum. It turns out to be a good move, the Bruins recover and Zacha manages to lose himself in the zone. The puck is finding him today, he wires it in for his hat trick goal. 4-3 Boston back in front.
Mantha is able to answer that goal with a second game-tying goal, this time poking one in from in front of the net after Parker Wotherspoon is able to get it down towards the cage. 4-4 game.
Wotherspoon high-sticks a Bruin with 6:32 in regulation, an unfortunate opening to give an opponent in this back and forth game. It’s the Pens who get the better of the scoring chances, Rust, Karlsson and Acciari all have some cracks at the puck from in-tight with Korpisalo down and out but they can’t finish.
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Acciari crashes hard into the boards and is down long enough to get a whistle but slowly skates off.
The last few seconds tick away, the Pens force an OT after entering the third period down by two goals.
Overtime
Novak-Chinakhov-Karlsson start the OT, and 17 seconds in they end it. Chinakhov hounds the Bruins on the forecheck, gets the puck and drives the net. The puck gets knocked away and bounces to Novak who is able to end it with a win.
The team mobs Novak behind the net, huge win for the Pens to make a comeback from 3-0 and take two huge points at home.
Some thoughts
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Insignificant but pretty funny the Pens can lose 6’6”, 232 pound Justin Brazeau for the day and get bigger in the lineup by replacing him with the 6’8”, 252 pound Elmer Soderblom.
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Soderblom first impressions were very Brazeau-like in the games where he doesn’t score. Obviously has a huge reach and uses it to poke away at opponents. As advertised, he’s not inclined to be that physical of a player. He did manage five shot attempts (three on goal) and looked like he might have practiced with Ben Kindel before, which he hasn’t
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There ought to be a moratorium on goaltender criticism, being as the goalies have been so consistently solid all season long. Today was an exception to that strong play. Silovs isn’t a great puckhandler and that bit him in this one. So many goalies these days are so good at that skill that it stands out that much more when one isn’t. Part tough break, part bound to happen every now and then. Situationally down 2-0, that was a tough one to take. Fortunately, and unlikely, the rest of the group was able to outscore the problems — which didn’t look like it was going to be the case.
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5v5 forward goal tracker: 3 today. Up to eight in the last seven games. Outside of Mantha or Ben Kindel popping up now and then to make a nice play or pass they just don’t have a lot of juice these days in the scoring department. The 5v5 offense right now is pretty much Erik Karlsson trying to create something and then…chasing the puck around the corners and doing virtually nothing with it there wasn’t much going on. Then, suddenly, Dewar scores his first in 11 games to light a fire, then Mantha follows that up with a goal of his own when the Pens finally crack the Bruins’ defensive structure. It’s no coincidence this game was trending hard towards a regulation loss before the forwards finally were able to start scoring in the third period.
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MacAvoy turns the puck over in the second period right to Letang, he feeds Avery Hayes and the puck goes off the crossbar. Zacha fans on a pass straight to Rust, no goal comes out of it. When the Pens made an error somewhere on the ice, the puck was soon to go into their net. So close, yet so far. Of course, the worm finally turned when Chinakhov jumped on another MacAvoy mis-play and it ended up in the net. Took a while, but they finally got there in the end.
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The celebration for this one shows how much it meant to the Pens. It’s Game 63 of the season. It’s the last home game for a while. The whole day was a battle, shoot even dating back to last week’s PIT/BOS game it was a mighty struggle for Pittsburgh to get much of anything going. They finally punched through the troubles and secured a full two points. Well worth the emotion that outpoured after this game was over, this team without Crosby and Malkin deserved that joy they went out and won.
All in all, a successful weekend to take three out of a possible four points. The margins are so thin right now between success and failure, for now the Pens keep managing to walk that fine line. It doesn’t get any easier with a trip to Raleigh coming up for Tuesday’s game.
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