Penguins/Blue Jackets Recap: Crosby scores late but Columbus wins shootout

Pregame

The Penguins use what they have been lately, Arturs Silovs gets his turn in the goalie rotation.

First period

Columbus gets the first goal of the game, a shot from Zach Werenski hits Noel Acciari and drops right to Zach Aston-Reese. Aston-Reese is quicker than Silovs as his quick shot slides on in. 1-0 CBJ to open things up 2:42 into the proceedings.

The Pens answer back in short order, matching the unlikely goal-scorer of Aston-Reese with a player scoring his first of the season for himself in Connor Clifton. Nice job by Clifton to stay activated deep in the offensive zone and finish off the goal to tie the game.

A Columbus turnover in their own end happened at the wrong place at the wrong time, and to the wrong guy. Sidney Crosby is there to grab a misplayed puck, he quickly centers the puck for Rickard Rakell to direct on net just as fast. 2-1 lead for the Penguins.

Good reaction from Pittsburgh, Columbus only had two shots after their goal in the last 17+ minutes of the period.

Second period

The Blue Jackets make a strong response early, the Pens get a power play but do little with it and the Columbus momentum keeps building up. They strike when Kirill Marchenko fires up out of no where in the neutral zone to grab a puck on the rush and shoot it in. 2-2 game.

Things don’t get much better for the Pens, most of their opportunities are few and far between. It looks like both teams might get to intermission tied but Danton Heinen redirects an Erik Gudbranson point shot late in the period and Columbus is back in front, 3-2.

Bad period for the Pens, can’t say it was undeserved. Columbus outshot Pittsburgh 13-8 in the period, most of the Pens’ chances were one-offs and not much in the way of consistent pressure.

Third period

Pittsburgh starts the period well by killing an overlap of a second period penalty, Clifton and Crosby flash to get chances that narrowly miss out on hitting the back of the net.

The aggressive play leads to some CBJ chances, Silovs does well to stop Adam Fantilli on a breakaway and fight off a 2-on-1 rush.

The Pens get a glorious opportunity with a late power play with 7:49 to go, still looks bad and doesn’t help.

It takes until about the 1:35 mark to get Silovs out of the net for the extra attacker, it doesn’t take long for the Pens to make it count with another 6v5 goal against Columbus late. Kris Letang shoots for a deflection, Crosby obliges with a typically outstanding redirect into the net past Elvis Merzlikins. 3-3 with 1:01 to go.

Overtime

Crosby-Malkin-Letang start it out for the Pens. Ben Kindel sneaks on the ice and gets a shot, Merlikins stops him.

Merzlikins keeps the game going with two point-blank stops on Evgeni Malkin. Silovs does his part with a stop on Charlie Coye from righti n front.

Crosby and Novak get really good looks at the net too before time expires but no one scores.

Shootout

The Pens go first, it’s Rakell. Merzlikins stays with the dekes and pokechecks the puck away when Rakell gets too close.

Kent Johnson takes the first turn for Columbus, dekes to the backhand and scores.

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Crosby is picked to shoot second, he goes with his move to shoot for the glove, but only hits the glove and can’t score.

Fantilli gets the chance to win the game, Silovs makes the stop on the low shot.

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Egor Chinakhov has to score against his former to keep the game going, his shot to the blocker side hits the net.

Marchenko could win it for CBJ, he was 5/5 on the season but Silovs comes up huge with a stop.

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Bryan Rust leads off Round 4 with the teams even. He bobbles the puck near the net and doesn’t get much of a shot off.

Coyle goes for the Blue Jackets with yet another chance to win, and this time they do after a strong forehand deke outmaneuvers Silovs.

Some thoughts

• A cool little aspect of Malkin playing the wing these days is that sometimes his shift can bleed into when Crosby comes on the ice. That can’t happen when both are centers and change onto the ice for one another. Malkin extended a shift in the first period while the puck was in the offensive zone and got to generate a bonus chance out of it. Fun wrinkle about his move to the wing.
• Dan Muse and the Pens look loyal to their goalie rotation, which you can’t knock too much given how well things are going across the board and how condensed the schedule is in this Olympic year. That said, if the concept of rotating goalies is going to stay, the question might shift to how long the team will stay loyal to Silovs being a part of that rotation? That’s a bigger picture question for a different day but one that might be worth asking when Silovs has won eight out of 22 decisions with a GAA over 3 and save percentage under .890% when Joel Blomqvist (.925 save%) and Sergei Murashov (.923%) are performing well and a phone call away for an alternative that could be performing better.
• To that end, Moneypuck had Columbus with a 1.4 expected goal total at the point Silovs had surrendered a third goal.
• One area Muse has remained too stubbornly loyal to is the shootout order and picking veterans who aren’t performing (Crosby) to go ahead of players who are (Chinakov). Once again, Chinakhov very nearly never even got an opportunity to shoot, the game could have been decided before Round 3 since neither Crosby or Rakell were able to score. This is a very correctable area, maddening to see it continue tonight, and know it’s probably not going to change next time either. It’s tough enough to win shootouts (where the Pens are 1-7 this season) since the goalies aren’t very good at stopping shots, failing to put the shooters in the proper alignment is makes the odds of success even slimer.
• This was a sneaky tough position for Pittsburgh to be in, seeing Columbus days after a coaching change (and 2-0-0 coming into the night under Rick Bowness). The former coach seemed to be somewhat unpopular among the players, there’s always that period of revitalization, extra energy and a boost from a new voice coming in. That doesn’t make for an easy opponent, even if it’s not exactly a stacked lineup to deal with. The Pens probably don’t have room to complain too much in the sequence of the schedule since they’ve seen so many opponents in b-2-b situations lately (plus the good fortune of facing Philadelphia last way in full-on collapse mode) but that uncontrollable element worked against them tonight.
• Cool to see Clifton get a goal, he played with confidence the rest of the night after that. As mentioned before, the Karlsson departure from the lineup makes for a great opportunity for Clifton to play regularly for the first time in a while. He hasn’t been poor so much as just lacked for the chance. Now it’s here. Clifton was probably one of the more noticeable better players on the ice for the Pens. And yes, I do mean that as a sort of backhanded compliment towards most of the rest of the team that should not have that be the case.
• The Pens’ power play (0/3 on the night) might not be the singular reason they didn’t win, but it’s high on the list. Looking back, that early second period power play where they did nothing and Columbus only took off from there was a huge turning point in the game from the dreaded ‘what could have been’ type of thoughts. Then getting a chance to tie the game in the third period and get back in it disappeared without much coming of it. Big turnaround from Thursday night when the power play was incredibly effective (albeit, against a majorly struggling Philadelphia PK played a part in that discrepancy as well).
• I don’t have the statistical backup at the moment but boy it sure feels like the 6v5 goals at the end of regulation where a goalie is pulled is way up this season. If not for the whole league, then certainly for the games Pittsburgh has been involved in. Luckily for the Pens, Columbus has been as allergic as they have this season when it comes to preserving third period leads.
• Things you don’t see every day is eight total OT shots (and no goals). It usually doesn’t take that many looks at the net to end a game in a 3v3 format.
• This game is tough to reconcile the question on if Pittsburgh got a fair shake or not at the end of the day. In some respects, maybe not: the expected goal count was 5.25 – 2.6 in the Pens’ on Moneypuck. On the other hand, the Pens were bad on the power play and had large stretches of unimpressive play. They certainly deserved getting something out of this one, all things considered it would have been pretty nice if someone could have scored in OT. Certainly enough players (Kindel, Malkin, Crosby, Novak) took great shots and had the chance. They couldn’t do that so taking the old school equivalent of a tie (one point) is ultimately fitting.

The next game is about 44 hours from when this one ended, which isn’t too bad. The part about it being, what about 2,500 miles away in Seattle might be the more daunting aspect.