Penguins Get Hard-Fought Point Against Canucks

The Penguins battled back from 2-0 and 3-1 deficits to earn a point against the red-hot Vancouver Canucks, falling 4-3 in overtime on Thursday at PPG Paints Arena. Pittsburgh is now 9-3-2 in their last 14 games dating back to Dec. 12.

Sidney Crosby scored the tying goal that forced extra time, one of two tallies in the game. Marcus Pettersson also found the back of the net with his first of the year.

“You can’t go down 3-1 early against a good team like that, but I think we competed hard coming back and tying it up, so hard-fought point,” Pettersson said.

The game didn’t start the way Pittsburgh imagined, as Brock Boeser got on the board twice in the first 6:31 of play. But Pettersson cut the deficit to one with less than four minutes to go in the period. Unfortunately for the black-and-gold, Vancouver’s own Pettersson, Elias, upped his team’s lead back to two.

After recording 36 saves on 37 shots in the team’s most recent win, a 4-1 victory in Philadelphia, Alex Nedeljkovic’s night ended after the first period as Tristan Jarry entered the game for Pittsburgh.

“Obviously, Ned's done a great job the last couple of games,” Jarry said. “He's got a lot of points and I think he's played great. I think we just came out a little bit flat. Those are all tough goals that were all basically backdoor tap-ins. So, it's tough on the goalies playing the shooter and pucks are going in around you. But I thought the team got together in the second period. Obviously, we started a little flat, but I think they did a great job in coming back.”

Jarry was phenomenal off the get-go with several timely saves to keep the Penguins in the game,  and that striking distance got closer as the captain brought Pittsburgh within one. This goal also tied him with Hockey Hall-of-Famer Mike Bossy for 22nd all time in goals with 573. Crosby wasn’t tied with Bossy for long as he tied the game for the Penguins with 28 seconds to go in the third period.

Pittsburgh was unable to fully complete the comeback, as the Penguins were unable to convert two power plays they had in the third – going 0-for-4 – before Elias Pettersson scored his second of the night for Vancouver in overtime. Jarry ended the game stopping 19 of the 20 shots he faced.

Here’s what Penguins Head Coach Mike Sullivan had to say after the game. The team practices tomorrow at UPMC Lemiuex Sports Complex ahead of their game on Saturday in Raleigh against the Hurricanes.

On his assessment of Pittsburgh’s goaltending tonight with both Nedeljkovic and Jarry, and what led to the decision to go with Tristan in the second:

“I thought it was tough to assess Ned’s game because I thought the goals were difficult saves. We made the decision to switch goalies mainly because we were trying to create a spark because we didn't think our team had the energy that we needed, or the juice, whatever you want to call it. I didn’t think we played with the energy we needed to in the first period. So, I thought Jars played really well.”

On how he thought the players responded in the second and third periods:

 “I thought at the beginning of the second period, we weren't as responsible with the puck. I thought we gave up a couple of odd-man rushes, we gave them some pretty good looks. But after that, I thought we were pretty solid. I give the guys a lot of credit for competing and digging in and finding a way to grab a point. I thought we competed hard the rest of the way. To get the 6-on-5 goal was huge. We had our looks in the overtime. That’s just the nature of overtime.”

On how he felt the Penguins have performed in the overtime frame this season:

“I don't know. It's hard. It's hard for me to assess it right now. I haven't really given it a whole lot of thought. I think we've had moments when we've been good. I think we've had moments when we haven't been. Overtime is a difficult situation to assess. It tends to be when there's a scoring chance that there tends to be a ripple effect or a domino effect. For example, we get a three-on-one, and they end up with a breakaway goal. If we score on the three-on-one, then how do we assess our overtime? We're pretty happy, right? We like it. So that's why I think overtime is a difficult circumstance or situation to assess. It just tends to be an element of chance associated with that’s hard to predict.”

On the status of Reilly Smith, who left the game in the first period after a hit along the boards:

“Just that he's being evaluated for an upper body injury, I don’t have any other specifics other than that.”

On his observations of the power play tonight:

“I didn't think they were as sharp as they've been most recently, and we just didn't execute as well. Our hope is that we would be more impactful there.”