PENS CRUSH SABRES, 4-0
Even without key pieces, outcome against NHL’s worst team never in doubt
When the week started, the Penguins had a growing list of concerns. They had just dropped two of three to the lowly New Jersey Devils and their forward ranks had swiftly been depleted. Another important one went down Wednesday.
Could they get enough goals and would their defense and goaltending hold up long enough to keep them in playoff position until reinforcements arrived?
Leave it to the Buffalo Sabres to come in and briefly wash their cares away.
The Penguins improved to 40-0 this season against the lastplace Buffalo Sabres by cruising to a 4-0 win Thursday at PPG Paints Arena. Making his NHL debut, Radim Zohorna scored his first NHL goal. Jared McCann had two tallies. And Casey DeSmith shut out Buffalo for the second time in as many weeks.
Oh, and Sidney Crosby added three assists to reach 1,300 career points.
“It’s a nice number and I wasn’t thinking about it a ton,”
said Crosby, who became the eighth- fastest to get there. “We were just focused on getting a win.”
In their back- to- back wins Wednesday and Thursday against the Sabres, who are playing out the string in March for the 10th consecutive year, the Penguins outscored them, 92, and for long stretches of both games led by multiple goals.
We’ll see if the Penguins can keep it going against opponents that aren’t total tire fires. But credit them for seizing all four points in the East Division standings after a week of setbacks, on the ice and in the training room.
“We’ve just got to keep moving forward here,” the captain said. “It’s not easy when you’re seeing guys each game go down. But I think for guys to come in the way they have and to play pretty strong games here, that’s important. So we’re going to have to continue to work together and everyone’s got to do their part.”
If any Penguins, after Thursday’s announcement that Kasperi Kapanen is out week-to-week, found themselves wondering how their luck could get any worse, they just needed to tiptoe into the visiting dressing room at PPG Paints Arena.
The Sabres’ 16-game winless streak is the NHL’s longest since the “X Generation” Penguins in 2003-04. Injuries forced them to give another start to Dustin Tokarski, Pittsburgh’s fourth-string goalie last season. And embattled general manager Kevyn Adams had to coach the team Thursday due to a COVID-19 protocol situation.
Not to mention that Jack Eichel, Buffalo’s lone star, is still on injured reserve.
So even with the Penguins missing more than $22 million’s worth of firepower up front, they still had a significant talent advantage over the Sabres. Crosby has nearly three times as many career points as Buffalo’s entire starting lineup.
The Penguins, despite all the injuries, continue to play with a heaping of heart, too. That was evident during a first-period penalty kill when Brian Dumoulin sprawled to break up a pass before Bryan Rust dropped to a knee to kick out a shot.
And then for the second time in as many nights, the Penguins got a big goal from their bottom-six. This time it was from a mystery man making his NHL debut.
With 2:39 left in the first period, Zohorna snapped a shot past Tokarski’s glove after Anthony Angello hit him in the slot with a nice pass. The rookie leapt into Angello’s arms and let out a jubilant scream as Frederick Gaudreau, who was with him in the American Hockey League earlier this month, hugged him front behind.
“I don’t have words,” Zohorna said after the game. “It’s why I play hockey.”
Zohorna signed with the Penguins last April after six seasons playing pro hockey back home in the Czech Republic. He started 2021 with the AHL club, getting used to North American hockey. Tuesday was his first full practice in Pittsburgh.
The 24-year-old is big at 6 feet 6 and 223 pounds. He has been praised for his soft hands and surprising playmaking ability for a man his size. He skates well enough to keep up with the play and put those to use in the offensive zone.
The Penguins bench went wild when the rookie scored on his first NHL shot.
“You love seeing that,” Crosby said. “You know it’s his first game and you think back to those emotions and those feelings that you had in your own first game and all the guys that have had memorable nights like that. So to see him score in his first game and see that emotion, that’s a huge boost and gets us going.”
The Penguins scored a power-play goal early in the second period to push it to 20. Crosby scrambled to keep the puck in at the blue line and seconds later it was on the stick of McCann, who wristed home his first goal since March 6.
DeSmith took care of it from there. His 36 saves included point-blank beauties on Sam Reinhart and Eric Staal. With the win, he improved to 8-3-0 in 2021 with a .928 save percentage that ranks among the league leaders. Not too shabby for a guy who shared the net with Tokarski in WilkesBarre/Scranton last season.
“It feels really good. It’s special,” he said. “Obviously, last year was not what I drew up in my mind, but I just tried to work hard down there and stick with it.”
McCann added an insurance goal in the third period, scoring again on the power play. Then Jake Guentzel hit an empty net to get Crosby his milestone point.
The Penguins will play host Saturday to the New York Islanders at PPG Paints Arena. That kicks off a twogame set against the East Division’s first-place squad.