Penguins/Canadiens Recap: Pens finally win a shootout on night Crosby surpasses Lemieux

Pregame

The Penguins mostly stick with their lines from Saturday night’s game, with the exceptions of Jack St. Ivany and Arturs Silovs getting into the action tonight.

The visiting Canadiens are working with these formations as they call it in French.

First period

The game starts out frightening similar to last night — the Penguins get an early power play, on which they struggle mightily. Montreal builds momentum from there to score the first goal of the night. Ryan Shea breaks his stick and in the time it takes to get one passed back from a forward the Canadiens zip a couple of quick passes around that leads to Oliver Kapanen jamming a one-timer in by Silovs. 1-0 MTL early.

At this point the Penguins finally were able to say ‘enough’s enough’. They respond with a goal to answer just 27 seconds later. Erik Karlsson puts a beautiful shot/pass to the middle for Sidney Crosby to redirect into the net. 1-1 game, important to get Pittsburgh on the board for the first time in 128:12 of game-play, even more important for Crosby himself to get on the scoresheet for the 1,723rd time and tie Mario Lemieux.

A few minutes later Rutger McGroarty draws a penalty and the Pens get back on the power play. Crosby rips a slapshot from the outside, it hits Bryan Rust and then sits for Rickard Rakell to deposit into the net. The Pens pull ahead 2-1, the bench empties as the entire team joins in the celebration for Crosby’s 1,724th point to move to the top of the team’s leaderboard in scoring.

Shots go 14-8 Pittsburgh in the first, they finally break their long scoring drought and Crosby makes some major history along the way. Not a bad opening 20 minutes to a game.

Second period

Montreal scores to tie the game, in a goal with some similarities to their first of the night from their second line with Juraj Slafkovsky getting another primary assist fired across the ice. This time Ivan Demidov pulls the trigger and beats Silovs to the far-side. 2-2.

The Pens restore their lead from an unlikely source, Noel Acciari is the recipient of a Kris Letang long lead pass. Acciari has room to shoot and does just that, firing over the shoulder of Dobes. 3-2.

Pittsburgh gets a chance for more, a St. Ivany shot leaves a rebound right there. McGroarty and Ville Koivunen battle to jam the puck in but can’t. A big melee ensues with the teams going at each other. Somehow a linesman gets tangled up and hurts his knee. Shea and Sammy Blais get matching two-minute minors out of it all.

Shots in the middle period are 15-9 for Pittsburgh, who take a one-goal lead into the final intermission.

Third period

Montreal finds another tying goal, not without some controversy. Parker Wotherspoon knocks Owen Beck into Silovs, there’s a lot of bodies in the blue paint when the puck goes in. Silovs is demonstrative to the refs that he couldn’t play his spot, the replay shows it’s as much Wotherspoon hindering his goalie falling backwards and into him as anyone else. The Pens consider a challenge, but they haven’t been on the same page as determining what page the refs are on with goalie interference so they let it go. 3-3.

Tommy Novak takes a trip to the penalty box after knocking the stick out of an opponent’s hands but the PK comes through to keep the game tied. Justin Brazeau is taken down a little later and the Pens get a shot at a third period power play. Nothing going.

Neither team can score before the end of regulation.

Overtime

Kindel, Rakell and Karlsson start for the Pens. Montreal controls the puck and they keep it for the first minute of OT in the Pens’ zone until Silovs can stop Lane Hutson from in front of the net and dive to freeze the puck.

Crosby, Rust and Letang are the next at it, and fare no better. Mike Matheson hits the post, the Habs swarm looking for the winner.

Pittsburgh finally gets the puck, Karlsson gets a shot from the outside and it’s Montreal right back on it. Crosby and Letang get it back and have some rare zone time, doesn’t last long before Slafkovsky shrugs off Rakell and goes for a breakaway, hitting post.

In the dying seconds Cole Caufield has a chance but he too finds only iron. Somehow Montreal doesn’t score.

Shootout

Kevin Hayes goes first for the Pens and scores by lifting a floating puck over Dobes.

Alex Texier leads off for Montreal, he tries a crazy Forsberg-ian like deke but loses the handle.

—

Crosby goes for the Pens, tests Dobes glove but it doesn’t work.

Caufield is up next, winds in slowly and shoots low through Silovs.

—

Rakell starts Round 3 by drifting to the wall and cutting back into the middle, scoring on a backhand deke.

Nick Suzuki has to score to keep it going, but his forehand deke doesn’t fool Silovs. The Penguins…win a shootout?!

Some thoughts

• Crosby nudges past Lemieux to become the eighth leading scorer in NHL history. Seventh place Steve Yzeman isn’t that far ahead (1,755 points, 31 away). Shoot, sixth place Marcel Dionne (1,771 points, 47 away) is also in very realistic striking distance this season at the rate Crosby’s going too.
• Also kinda nuts for Crosby to score his 20th goal of the season before Christmas. At age 38. The beat goes on.
• Crosby’s assist later in the first period tied him with Adam Oates for eighth all-time in that category (1,079).
• It was nice of Sportsnet Pittsburgh to not cut to the regularly scheduled commercial and instead present the tribute video instead, complete with a nice message from Lemieux.
• For some other thoughts, I’m liking the physical element that Brett Kulak is bringing to the second pair. He leveled a big hit in the first period, then cleaned up the front of the net with authority at and after the whistle in the second. The Pens can use that hard edge and a little sandpaper on the blueline.
• It’ll be interesting to see if tonight’s goal gets Rakell back on track. Due to the injury it’s his first time turning on the red light since October 23rd, taking until his sixth game in the return from injury to score.
• Josh Getzoff on the broadcast mentioned how Shea and St. Ivany made up a good pair at the tail end of the ‘23 season when the Pens were playing well. The results weren’t seamless for a reunion tonight being on the ice for both of Montreal’s first two goals and watching a bunch of passes whiz by them. As always there was some context with Shea breaking his stick on one and St. Ivany getting caught ahead of the play on the second and never really catching up. Probably not a pair you want to see out against a team’s second line with weapons like Slafkovsky and Demidov too often, the Habs made the Pens pay when they got that matchup tonight.
• Silovs got an assist on the Acciari goal, his second of the season. That ties Kevin Hayes and Ville Koivunen’s assist totals on the season.
• I’m glad Muse didn’t challenge for goalie interference in the third period, it wasn’t one they likely would have won. (Again). Goalie interference can be very subjective from person to person and ref to ref but in this one Wotherspoon initiated the contact for pushing the Montreal player and then fell back into his goalie. There was goalie interference but the refs don’t disallow the goal when it’s a team’s own player doing it.
• I also hate the near automatic call these days when a player stick checks another and if the stick gets knocked out of their hands it’s a penalty, like what happened to Tommy Novak in the third period. If you chop hard enough to break a player’s stick, yeah that’s an infraction If they aren’t holding their stick firm enough and drop it, that’s a personal problem, not necessarily a penalty. More and more that’s becoming one the refs call on sight.
• This game might have led the season for the Pens with pushes and punches after the whistle. No love lost between these teams after playing each other three times in the last 10 days.
• Fitting that the Pens end their losing streak by winning their first shootout in six tries this season. Gotta score goals to win shootouts, nice moves by Hayes and Rakell to come through and good for Silovs to get the monkey off his back a little bit by making two stops.

This game where Crosby tied and took the franchise point lead wouldn’t have felt right if it didn’t accompany a win. That looked unlikely given how overtime went and the always challenging shootout. A win is a win and Pittsburgh won’t quibble with how it came about. Next game on Tuesday against the slumping Maple Leafs before the holiday break kicks in.