The Penguins had several quality chances on a power-play opportunity early in the second, but Kochetkov came up big. He made a right-pad save on a deflection by Evgeni Malkin before stopping Sidney Crosby on a back-door stuff chance at the right post.
“Those were a lot of tough ones that maybe you didn’t notice,” Brind’Amour said. “But they were real tricky. He was the player of the game for me.”
Roslovic put Carolina up 2-0 at 8:47. Roslovic pushed the puck ahead to Aho before taking a return pass and scoring from the slot.
“You give up (a goal on) that first shot of the game, and it’s never a good feeling,” Nedeljkovic said. “We only gave them (four) shots in the first period, and two of them wind up in the net. It’s a crappy feeling. That was the difference in the game. Their guy was that much better than I was.”
Roslovic pushed the lead to 3-0 at 9:27 of the second period, settling a cross-ice pass from Andrei Svechnikov and scoring on a hard wrist shot past the glove. With his ninth goal, Roslovic tied his total from last season, when he played 59 games between the Columbus Blue Jackets and New York Rangers.
“It’s just going in, finding the right places on the ice and making it easy on my linemates,” Roslovic said. “These guys make it really easy to be around. It’s a fun group, cheer for everybody. It’s just good energy.”