Penguin / capital letters recap: Sid called the game. Pens complete wild return in 5-4 win

Pre-game

Kasperi Kapanen makes his debut with the Penguins, otherwise the Pittsburgh lineup is the same as the victory on Sunday.

The capitals decide to make a change in the network to give Vitek Vanecek a match and overtake Daniel Sprong in the line of the last game.

First period

The Caps attack first in the race. After a shot attempt by Juuso Riikola is blocked, Washington starts to run the other way. TJ Oshie makes a beautiful cross pass to Lars Eller for a quick throw that hits Casey DeSmith. 1-0 WSH 4:55 into the game.

Pens are slow, bow check doesn’t work, their leaks aren’t sharp, defenders are skating on the puck, not knowing what’s going on here, but it’s not a pretty sight.

Finally, the newest Penguin provides a shot in the arm and some energy. Kapanen controls the puck to the ice and enters the zone with possession (which seems exciting enough as boring as the game has been) and fires at Vanecek. The goalkeeper cannot control the rebound and Teddy Blueger and Colton Sceviour are there to score. The goal is credited to Sceviour and is a draw for a short period.

And by “briefly” I mean that the tie lasts six seconds. Blueger is expelled from the direct confrontation by the referee, Sceviour loses control and the Caps are on the rise again. Tom Wilson has room to shoot, so he does and DeSmith is not far enough at his angle, even though he is at the top of the painting – and the puck hits his shoulder and enters. The problems of being a 6’0 ”NHL goalkeeper! 2-1 Caps.

As if that were not enough, the Pens lose by two goals before the end of the period. Wilson cuts to the net and Brian Dumoulin fails to reach him (after a bad change) and John Carlson hits Wilson with a beautiful pass to direct the net and make the game 3-1 with 16 seconds remaining. I’m not sure what Brandon Tanev and John Marino were doing to defend Carlson, but that’s the level of effort on the whole team.

Shooting ends at 11-5 Caps, in what I believe to be the first full period of the year to be played exclusively at 5v5. The Pens looked like they were going to be very lucky to come out of a very bad period with a goal, or even tied for a second. But it was not meant to be.

The point was that, while the Pens did very little, the Caps also did not make a TON (until the last minutes with two goals from Wilson, which obviously matter a lot). Corsi’s events were 16-13 matches. The chances of goal were 8-7 Pens, chances of high danger of 4-3 Caps. The Pens were playing back into the game when they scored their first goal (the yellow dot, according to the Natural Stat Trick), but then the bottom fell.

Second period

Kapanen looks right in front of the net, but somehow Pettersson and Marino pinch each other, no striker is covering and Washington gets a 3 to 0 run on the ice. They pass, but DeSmith does well to keep the puck out of the net in Carl Hagelin’s kick (thank goodness it was).

Pittsburgh keeps pushing, the fourth row has been the best and they draw a game of strength. The Pens have a 1:21 advantage of 5v3 when Lars Eller joins Orlov in the area. It takes a while and is sloppy, but luckily they move the puck across the ice twice and Bryan Rust manages to drop the puck for Jake Guentzel to hit home. 3-2 game.

The Pens’ inability to cleanly control the puck in the middle of the ice, or defend the race, or get a good goalkeeper continues to unfold in a microcosm of the season for Washington’s fourth goal. The Caps take the puck, get no resistance, throw a puck into the net that DeSmith can’t control and Evgeni Kuznetsov is totally free to hit the loose rebound. Ugly ugly of the home team, which again falls behind by two goals, 4-2.

Washington has its first power game of the night, when Guentzel is accused of hooking. Tanev takes an Ovechkin slap and falls hard. The Pens repeat the mistake of Washington’s first period when Chad Ruhwedel is sent to a bar to give the Caps 53 seconds 5v3.

There is a goal in this sequence, but …. it is for the Penguins in a 3v5. The Caps show a bit of sloppiness with a lazy dump straight to DeSmith. The goalkeeper does a great job of launching the record into space and Teddy Blueger is behind the entire Caps team! Blueger rubs the backhand and shoves it into Vanecek’s hole five. 4-3 game.

As the strength game expires, Oshie kills Pettersson right in the center of the ice, sending Pittsburgh into a strength game, but also taking down Pettersson. It is called a five-minute principal, but after a review it is reduced to a two-minute interference call.

Malkin wins with his first goal of the season in a slapper to make it 4-4.

Second division kicks end at 10-7 overall in favor of the Pens. In total, there were 33 SOG in this game and eight goals. Coaches can’t help seeing the team’s defense in tatters and open shots from end to end for both teams.

Third period

Without Pettersson or Riikola to start the period, the Pens are reduced to four defenders. Lovely.

The game calms down a bit, although Kuznetsov slides a puck under DeSmith, but not quite over the line.

Tiredness is settling in now, the Pens are able to load the game and make the Caps freeze the disc a little, but Pittsburgh is basically capable of shooting at points and long-range attempts.

Guentzel almost redirects a shot from Letang point 2 minutes from the end, bringing the Pens very close. The strokes on the 3rd are 12-7 pens. Nobody can score, so again we have ..

Extra hour

The Pens basically dominate the record all overtime, first with a change from Malkin, so Crosby wins a draw in the zone that’s all she wrote. Good job from Jake Guentzel to enter the zone and throw the disc away, recover it and find the final point. Letang’s shot, watch Crosby’s feet go 9 to 3 as he chases the rebound and hits home. So difficult, yet so easy. This is art. 5-4, Pens win!

Some thoughts

• It took more than seven minutes of play for the Pens to get a shot on goal. At this point, they were losing 1-0.
• Players at the bottom of the lineup receive minutes cut off after being on the ice for a goal against is a staple today (see Lafferty, Daniel, err Sam, who was sent off from the team after committing a goal in the last game). The fact that Riikola-Ruhwedel scored the first goal made them play 3:15 and 3:35 in the first period, which was totally ES. Brian Dumoulin played 9:24, Kris Letang 9:20. John Marino had 7:20 in the first period and Marcus Pettersson had 6:57 as the team was basically just doubling the first two pairs for most of the period.
• The Pens would be reduced to 4 defenders, and not by choice at the end of the game, exchanging Dumoulin / Letang and Ruhwedel / Marino. Fortunately, they held up well and were able to play most of the period, not on their own side.
• A small line change in the strategy was made for the beginning of the second; Bryan Rust will play with Mark Jankowski and Jared McCann, Brandon Tanev appears to join Evgeni Malkin and Jason Zucker.
• This fourth goal really makes clear the lack of pre-season and carelessness. An attacker does not track, Tanev is in the photo, but is not close to recognizing the numbers against. Marino left a big gap in his player for the opening shot. Pettersson was playing more in the attack area than a player and was effectively useless when the big rebound came out at a sharp angle.
• Then again, the Pens’ third goal in a 3v5 showed Washington’s slouch in the same way. It is a process that everyone in the league is dealing with, with almost no time to increase, and it is showing up across the ice.
• And it really can’t be overstated how big that DeSmith and Blueger piece was. With a 5×3 for 51 seconds, the Caps were gearing up to make the game 5-2 and place a bet on Pens’ proverbial hearts. Instead, it ends not only with Pittsburgh escaping 4-2, but actually scoring 4-3.
• I wonder if the player’s security will call Oshie. Blindside hit that took a player out of the game and was a little late, that was the kind of unnecessary hard collision that the NHL is supposedly trying to get out of the game.

Unlock game keys (from preview)

# 1 Penalty over. Both teams paved the way for the big area. Both teams played clean first, but Washington broke down by taking two quick penalties, which allowed the Pens to reduce their lead to a 3-2 goal. In the second period, the Penguins ended up taking two penalties in the same sequence, although Blueger’s unlikely goal helped a lot. Oshie’s big blow gave the Pens another goal from Malkin’s special team to score the game. There aren’t many men on the smaller bench for Pittsburgh, at least!

# 2 The first six to get on track. Guentzel and Malkin scored and Crosby made two assists, though all in strength games. Then Guentzel, Letang and Crosby agreed for the OT winner. It has to be good for those guys to get rewarded and get moving, it wasn’t the smoothest or in a usual 5v5, but the big guns went up often, and the Pens won. Very successful formula.

# 3 questions in each network. The Pens decided to take advantage of DeSmith’s winning hand from the last game. He gave up group goals, including Wilson’s first goal from a long shot that you would certainly want a goalkeeper to stop, especially literally seconds after the Pens tied the game 1-1. But he also stopped a 3-0 run and made a great move to start a 3v5 goal, so there were some good ones with the bad ones. On the other hand, Vanecek was not exactly upside down and also at the mercy of a poor team defense.

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In short, a victory is a victory. Great for Pens to recover from 2 deficits of two goals and earn two points at the end of the night. Now, we hope to see and hear how long your lost defenders can be gone.