What a finish to Tuesday’s Metro Division matchup with the Islanders.
After going down 4-2 at the 10:42 mark of the period, Valtteri Puustinen and Drew O’Connor quickly responded with a pair of goals 56 seconds apart to tie the game and force regulation.
While Adam Pelech won it for New York in the first minute to take a four-point lead over Pittsburgh in the standings, the Penguins – who still have two games in hand on the Islanders –are trying to stay as positive as they can at this point of the season.
“We got to keep the faith and the belief, and it's tough right now when you only get one point,” Lars Eller said. “But we showed we have no quit in us regardless of how things went during the game, and that's going to be important going forward.”
Alex Nedeljkovic was hard on himself after the game, saying that he dropped the ball, particularly on the overtime tally. “I just got beat,” he said. However, the Penguins captain said it was tough because the Penguins were caught in a bit of a difficult situation.
“Obviously, you don’t want to give up the line like that… Yeah, it's just tough,” Sidney Crosby said. “Have to look at it. Typically, you don't like to let a guy skate in like that, but we were in between line changes, too."
Nedeljkovic gave up five goals on 33 shots, while Marcus Pettersson and Eller also scored for Pittsburgh.
The Islanders had built quite an edge in shots to start the first period, but the Penguins
began stringing some good shifts together and got rewarded with a big goal from Pettersson. It gave Pittsburgh a 1-0 lead entering the second, where the momentum changed early.
Brock Nelson, who’s had the Penguins number for years now, got the Islanders on the board with his 20th goal in 42 career games against Pittsburgh (and his team-leading 24th tally). The Penguins had a chance to respond shortly after with their first power play of the night, but ended up giving up a breakaway goal to Mathew Barzal out of the box.
Those two goals came less than three minutes apart, then the Islanders got their third unanswered tally when Simon Holmstrom banked one in coming out from behind the net.
It could have been a deflating sequence, but instead, the Penguins put together a good late push and Eller got them back within one. With a failed coach’s challenge on the play, the Penguins ended up with a power play, and generated a lot.
They kept up that shooting mentality early in the third as they began the final frame with 1:28 on the man-advantage, but it didn’t result in a goal, and then Islanders defenseman Mike Reilly lasered one in. That’s when the Penguins responded again.
“When things aren't going your way, you can't quit on your teammates and I don't think anyone quit tonight,” Eller said.
Here’s what Head Coach Mike Sullivan had to say after the game.
I know you got a point and I'm sure you're happy with how your team fought back, but it still feels like another gut punch of a loss. How many more of these can your team endure before the confidence becomes really shaken in that room, do you think? “Well, it's a tough one. It's disappointing because I thought our team competed really hard. I thought some of the ebbs and flows of the game, certain things didn't go our way. A couple of the goals were fluky, and I just thought our guys kept competing. So, from that standpoint, I thought there was a lot to like about our team game tonight. I thought our guys had an inspired effort. So, we didn't get the result. Obviously, that's disappointing. But I think there's a lot of good things we can take from this one.”
Is the message kind of, hey, we fought to at least get something? “Yeah, I mean, obviously, we're disappointed we didn't get two, you know? I try to look at it objectively and look at the process and give the players a fair assessment of how the game was played. You can't always control if the puck goes in the net or not. All you can control is your effort, your energy, your intent, your compete level, your execution level. I thought for a lot of the night, it was a pretty inspired effort by a lot of guys. We had a lot of guys that were playing a determined game. I thought our attentions were in the right spots. I thought we had a fair amount of offensive zone play. We fought back to get back in the game a couple of different times. Just the resilience that the guy showed, I was proud of that. I think the guys really stepped up in that regard. That's going to be an important element for us moving forward, and I think that's something that we can build on.”
Was it good to get highly visible contributions from Drew O’Connor, Valtteri Puustinen, those guys? “For sure. We've been encouraging that for a while now, to get the types of contributions through our lineup – not just scoring goals, but helping our offensive zone time, hanging onto pucks and things of that nature. I thought all of the lines contributed in that regard. I thought Lars Eller’s line had a real strong night. I thought Geno's line had some O-zone time. Sid’s line always does. So, from that standpoint, when you get production through the lineup like that – that's certainly encouraging. We continue to do that, we’re gonna win games.”
Alex was very critical of his own play, saying he dropped the ball tonight. What was your assessment of how he played? “Yeah, I don't think it was his best. I thought he competed really hard. You know, he's a great teammate, he competes. He's a battler. I don't think it was his best, but I think he's just an ultimate competitor, and I thought he fought hard in the net tonight. I think when you look at his body of work this year, it's been really strong for our team. I just think he's a real fierce competitor.
Have to ask about the power play and your thoughts on that, if that's kind of rattling their confidence at this point (they went 0-for-4 against the NHL’s 32nd-ranked penalty kill): “I thought they had some really good looks. We didn't score, you know? They made some plays, we had a significant amount of offensive zone time. I didn't think we got a whole lot of puck luck when Barzal comes out of the penalty box at the same time the puck goes around the wall. That's a tough one. But I thought some of the plays that were made, we had a couple of backdoor plays – Rusty had one on the back door. Those types of looks are high-quality looks. I thought they got a handful of those tonight, and I think that's something to build on. So, I know we didn't score but there was a lot to like with what's going on. If they stay with it, I think they’re going to score.”
