Crosby nets OT winner
Letang leaves with lower-body injury
NEW YORK — With the puck on his stick and the game on a string, Sidney Crosby took matters into his own hands during 3-on-3 overtime.
The Penguins captain knew he was playing against a tired group of defensemen after several shifts of sustained pressure pinned the three Rangers on the ice. He passed to rookie Pierre-Olivier Joseph, flashed to the high slot, received the pass back and picked his spot.
Rangers goalie Alexandar Georgiev watched the puck go through his pads and into the net. The Penguins hopped off the bench in a blur of gold and black, celebrating their 5-4 victory Saturday night inside an empty and eerie Madison Square Garden.
“I didn’t get all of it,” Crosby said. “But I was glad to see it go in.”
That quote kind of sums up the game as a whole, incomplete but enough. For the Penguins (5-3-1) it was another imperfect, yet
winning, effort that revealed their warts and heart. And, yet again, an injury added more adversity.
Perennial All-Star Kris Letang left the game midway through the first period. He’s being evaluated for a lower-body injury. The club already had to scramble to find six healthy defensemen for the game, a task that included asking free-agent Yannick Weber to drive 16 hours through a snowstorm to meet the team in New York.
Missing their top-pairing righty, the Penguins skated the final 50 minutes with just five defensemen.
Letang’s partner to start the night, Joseph, stepped up. He is both a rookie playing in just his fifth NHL game and a top-pairing defenseman. He looked much more like the latter. The lanky lefty recorded three primary assists while racking up almost 26 minutes of ice time, a total coach Mike Sullivan called “exorbitant” for a 21-year-old rookie.
“He’s got an insatiable appetite for the game,” Sullivan said. “We can see him improving right in front of our eyes with every minute that he plays out there. … Tonight, I think might have been his best game of the season for us when we needed it.”
Sullivan challenged his club to simplify its game following a two-game series in Boston in which the Penguins scored just three total goals. Get more pucks on net. Create rebounds, deflections and second-chance opportunities.
Joseph, in particular, listened to the message from the staff. He tallied two of his assists in the first period by gripping and ripping it.
About eight minutes into the first period, Joseph collected a cross-ice pass from Kasperi Kapanen in transition and, simply, just put it on net. Jason Zucker was there for the redirection.
Later in the first period, Teddy Blueger worked the puck to Joseph at the point. He made a subtle pump fake, showing his offensive instincts to freeze the defending forward. That created just enough of a lane to get a puck on net that Brandon Tanev redirected.
Though the Penguins came out of the first intermission with one of their few second-period leads of the season, it nearly came undone due to defensive breakdowns and undisciplined play. The Penguins entered the game giving up 3.75 goals per game. That was the third-worst in the league and only got worse due to a sloppy second.
Aside from Kapanen’s breakaway goal, the Penguins looked out of sync, committing three penalties and giving up several oddman rushes. The most egregious miscue came on the power play, when John Marino tried to be aggressive at the blue line to keep the puck in but instead sent the Rangers the other way on a 2-on-0.
“We’ve given up a couple short-handed goals the last few games,” Crosby said. “It’s hard to win when you give those up. A lot of times, those end up being the difference.”
During a disjointed second period filled with special teams, the Penguins also lost a puck battle and lost track of their assignments for a Chris Kreider goal. Then, Artemi Panarim showed why he was a Hart Trophy finalist last season with an absolute rocket on the power play.
The Penguins found themselves in a familiar position, trailing, 4-3, to start the third. Again, it was that simple approach that paid off. Sidney Crosby won a faceoff back to Marino. He sent it to Cody Ceci, who fired a shot at the net. Jake Guentzel batted the rebound out of the air and into the Rangers net for the equalizer.
That set the stage for Crosby. For the second time this year, the captain completed the comeback in overtime. Even Sullivan, typically stoic in victory, gave a little fist pump in celebration.
“I was happy for those guys, their resilience and their resolve through all the ebbs and flows of the game, through some of the adversities during some of this early part of the season,” Sullivan said. “I know how much they care. I know how hard they’re competing out there. When Sid scored in the overtime, I was certainly thrilled for them.”