Standing on his head
Penguins win as G Jarry stops Rangers’ late surge
Sidney Crosby stepped onto the ice following the Penguins’ 4-2 win over the Rangers with his stick raised high to salute the last-remaining fans at PPG Paints Arena.
A key first-period assist to tie the score. A late empty net goal to seal it. Seems like a good resume for the No. 1 star of the night, right?
Well, no offense to the captain, but Tristan Jarry got robbed.
“He won the game for us,” Teddy Blueger said of Jarry, who stopped 33 of 35 shots and survived a last-second onslaught. “There’s no other way to put it.”
While the Penguins controlled play through the first two periods — as Kasperi Kapanen extended his hot streak with his fifth goal in 10 games, Blueger buried a short-handed goal and Jake Guentzel kept doing what he always does — the home team coasted in the third.
They were outshot, 15-1, in the final frame as New York pinched and pressed. By the time the Rangers pulled their goalie for the extra attacker, the Penguins were scrambling to hang onto two points.
Had the Penguins’ No. 1 netminder not made several dazzling saves in the closing seconds, the game very well might have still been going on when the stars of the night were announced.
Luckily, Jarry rose to the occasion to improve to 8-3-0 since Valentine’s Day. He stoned Pavel Buchnevich on a Grade-A chance from close range in the closing moments. Later, he sprawled onto his stomach to make another five-star save.
By the end of the game, the 2,800 fans at PPG Paints Arena were chanting Jarry’s name. And after it, his teammates and coaches were singing his praises, too.
“He made some real big saves that probably earned us an extra point,” coach Mike Sullivan said. “He was big when we needed him to be.”
The third period was surprising given the way the first two periods unfolded and also given the way the last week played out.
The Penguins ( 15- 9- 1) learned a hard lesson about human nature on Thursday, when they watched a 3-0 lead against the Philadelphia Flyers turn into one of the mostdisappointing regulation losses of the season. They responded to that loss with a bounce-back win against the Flyers on Saturday. Then, after another three-goal flurry during Sunday’s game against the Rangers, the Penguins hit the accelerator and blew out the Rangers, 51.
“I thought we had a great blueprint on how to finish games out [in Sunday’s 5-1 win],” Sullivan said. “… For whatever reason tonight, we got on our heels a little bit.”
The last scramble by the Rangers was dramatically contrary to how the first two periods unfolded.
In the first, the Penguins outshot the Rangers, 16-7, and commanded 52% of the expected goals, according to Natural Stat Trick. But a bad bounce from an old friend cost them. Rangers defenseman Jack Johnson, whom the Penguins bought out after two subpar seasons, tossed a harmless-looking shot from the point that changed direction off defenseman John Marino’s boot and past Jarry.
Still, the Penguins ice-tilting play in the first paid off. With 66 seconds left, Crosby forced a Rangers turnover as they were attempting to exit the zone. The captain threw the puck cross-ice to Guentzel, who sniped the puck top shelf for the equalizer.
In the second period, the Penguins found a bright spot from their up-and-down penalty kill, which ended the night squashing just 74% of opposing chances, which ranked 25th out of 31 teams. But on this night Blueger slashed through the left circle and tucked the puck between goalie Keith Kinkaind’s legs for a shorthanded goal.
The Penguins extended their lead to two goals in the closing moments of the second period, capitalizing on an extended offensive zone shift from the Evgeni Malkin line. It ended with Kapanen posted up in the slot calling for the puck. Malkin found him with a subtle, 3-foot pass. Kapanen picked his spot for his seventh goal of the season.
“It was one of the best shifts we had all year,” Sullivan said. “It was a clinic on puck possession and offensive-zone play.”
The Penguins should have coasted from there. Instead Kapanen’s shot was the last one the Penguins recorded on net until Crosby’s empty-netter in the closing seconds.
On the power play, New York’s Ryan Strome fired a shot that again deflected off Marino’s skate and past Jarry. The Rangers kept the pressure on the Penguins, leading to those nervous moments and highlight-reel saves.
“It’s kind of happened a couple times throughout the course of the year,” Blueger said.
“When we have the lead, we kind of tend to back off a little bit, especially late, and invite the pressure. … We’ve got to get better at sticking with our game plan as if it’s a tie game or any other score line.”
The good news for the Penguins is they can reinforce this lesson with two points in their back pocket. With the win, they are now 5-1 on the season against the Rangers, earning 10 critical points against a bottom-half team in a parity-packed East Division that looks to feature five contenders jostling for four playoff spots.
The Penguins jam-packed March schedule continues with a two-game series in Buffalo. Puck drops at 7 p.m. Thursday.