If At First You Don't Succeed, Try Again

As Bryan Rust watched Rickard Rakell push the puck over to Erik Karlsson during the overtime period of Thursday’s matchup with Los Angeles, he beelined to the net for a re-direct chance and batted in his own rebound.

Rust celebrated like it was a goal, knowing that it was probably going to get overturned for being offside, which it did. Not to worry. The Penguins winger simply made the next one count, scoring his seventh of the season on a wraparound and leading Pittsburgh to a 4-3 overtime victory.

“I was able to get out there right away again and make the most of it, and happy that happened,” Rust said with a grin after the game.

Magnus Hellberg, who made 33 saves in his first start as a Penguin with Tristan Jarry sidelined due to swelling in his eye, handed off the helmet to Rust. “I hope you all agree that if you score two in overtime, you deserve this helmet.”

No one argued with that, as it was certainly a unique ending to a hard-fought contest.

“I’ve never seen two OT winners in one game,” smiled Lars Eller, who sniped a beautiful shorthanded goal as the penalty kill went a perfect 3-for-3. “But it's great, he stuck with it. It was really telling for our team today that we never quit and if it didn't work out on that shift, we went out and tried again the next one. So, credit to him. He made some great plays on both goals.”

After the guys filed into the locker room, Evgeni Malkin yelled gleefully into the camera, “SIX POINTS!” – cheesing while holding up that many fingers. The Penguins swept their three-game road trip through California for the second time in franchise history, and first time since 1996-97.

They defeated San Jose (10-2), Anaheim (2-0), and Los Angeles (4-3) to return home feeling much better than they did upon leaving Pittsburgh last Thursday, as the Penguins had lost three in a row and five of six at that point.

“Definitely needed it,” Eller said. “We needed to get a little bit of wind in our sails.”

The sentiment around the dressing room is that while the Penguins played well against the Sharks and Ducks, they didn’t have their best tonight. The Kings, who are now 8-2-3 on the year, outshot the Penguins 36-20 and forced them to come up with an ugly win.

“Any time you play a team like this – who plays hard, they play in your face, they play straight ahead – you got to respond, or else you're gonna get run over,” Rust said. “I think we did a fairly good job of just making sure we got it done today.”

Sidney Crosby had opened the scoring in the first to extend his point streak to seven games, before Los Angeles evened it up heading into the intermission. and tilted the ice especially hard in the second. But the score was again tied after 40 minutes, with Jake Guentzel converting a beautiful feed from the captain in 37 seconds into the final frame to put Pittsburgh back ahead.

And while the Kings knotted it up on a tough sequence, Head Coach Mike Sullivan praised the way his team kept competing after that goal in a third period that got pretty heated.

“We didn't get down when they scored,” Sullivan said. “They’re a good team, they’re hard to play against. They have good size, they can skate. They play with a lot of structure. And so, I thought it was a gutsy effort on our part. I think there's a lot we can take from it on the good side, and the not-so-good side. But to come out with a win is huge. It’s obviously a great road trip for us. I think it's something that we can build on moving forward.”