Backup netminder saves the day for Penguins
Yandle scores 100th goal as Florida rips Chicago
PITTSBURGH — Casey DeSmith felt the puck at his feet, looked down to confirm it was indeed the case. He then exhaled as his Pittsburgh Penguins teammates poured over the bench in the middle of an empty arena to congratulate their backup goaltender, the one hardly playing like a backup.
Starting in place of a shaky Tristan Jarry, DeSmith turned aside 20 shots he faced in regulation and overtime then stuffed Washington’s T.J. Oshie, Nicklas Backstrom, Evgeny Kuznetsov and Alex Ovechkin in the shootout as the Penguins picked up their first win of the season with a 4-3 victory on Sunday.
Given the start after Jarry allowed nine goals on 31 shots while getting swept in Philadelphia last week, DeSmith picked up his first victory since March 14, 2019, when he denied Ovechkin after Jake Guentzel put Pittsburgh up in the fourth round of the shootout.
DeSmith figured Ovechkin would try to fire one past him rather than deke his way to the net. DeSmith stayed upright as
Ovechkin closed in and felt the familiar smack of rubber hitting him and not the net.
“I saw the puck at my feet and I was ecstatic,” DeSmith said.
Evan Rodrigues, Colton Sceviour and Marcus Pettersson all scored their first goals of the season for Pittsburgh, which rallied twice from one-goal deficits and clamped down on the Capitals for the final 45 minutes after Washington did whatever it wanted while taking a 2-1 lead in the first.
“I thought our guys played hard in the second and third against a really good team,” Penguins coach Mike Sullivan said. “We need to have that sort of effort, but also playing with a sense of purpose and I thought we did that in the second and the third.”
PANTHERS 5, BLACKHAWKS 2: In Sunrise, Fla., Keith Yandle got his 100th career goal and Chris Driedger made 23 saves as Florida beat Chicago.
Eetu Luostarinen scored his first NHL goal, and Aaron Ekblad, Patric Hornqvist and Jonathan Huberdeau also scored for Florida, which had three goals in the third period to pull away in its delayed opener. The Panthers were to have played Dallas last week twice, games that were called off because of a COVID-19 outbreak among the Stars.
Alex DeBrincat and Connor Murphy scored for the Blackhawks. Collin Delia stopped 24 shots.
As late as last Friday, it seemed as if Yandle was going to be a healthy scratch from this game and break his string of playing in 866 consecutive regular-season games, the longest active streak in the NHL.