Tampa’s surge downs Pittsburgh in overtime

Pregame

The Penguins don’t change any skaters from last game, which means Kris Letang misses a third straight game. Tristan Jarry is back in net.

Jake Guentzel makes his second trip back to Pittsburgh as a visitor (Carolina played here late in the season last year) with the Lightning who have the following lines:

First period

Pittsburgh starts out pretty well, giving up only three shots in the first eight minutes (and Jarry stops them all!) Bryan Rust takes the first penalty the night on a weak slashing call. Luckily the Pens kill it off.

Jarry makes a huge situational stop on Anthony Cirelli from in front, and moments later Pittsburgh scores. Marcus Pettersson flicks the puck from the left point down low and Jesse Puljujarvi is able to direct it up and into the net for his third of the season and second in as many games. 1-0 Pens.

Jack St. Ivany was having problems with the speed of Brandon Hagel. Hagel beat him wide on one rush, then beat St. Ivany again up the middle and forced a takedown. St. Ivany to the box for two minutes as a result. Guentzel deflects a shot from in front but it hits iron and stays out.

The Pens make it through 20 minutes unscathed. Shots are 10-9 TB, feels like more than that since shot attempts are 25-14 in favor of the Lightning. Pittsburgh doing a great job with nine shot blocks, selling out to help the goalie, who did his part as well.

Second period

Each teams fail to convert a glorious chance a piece in the early going, first Mitchell Chaffee on the rush gets a pass on a 2-on-1 that’s been a goal against the Pens 101 times out of 100 so far this season...And his shot is well high of the wide open net.

Then on the other side, Rickard Rakell does well to win a puck on the forecheck and feeds a pass right into Sidney Crosby’s wheelhouse for a big slapper. It beats Andrei Vasilievskiy but rings loudly off the post.

Pittsburgh gets their first power play of the game and cash in with a goal. From behind the net, Crosby feeds Rakell who wires in his seventh of the season. 2-0 Pens.

The Pens get a second power play and more looks but no added goal.

Pittsburgh up 2-0 on the scoreboard but were down 12-6 in shots. Goalie in the home net looking pretty steady out there.

Third period

Erik Karlsson gets whistled for a penalty but Pittsburgh kills it off, only to give up a goal shortly after it ends when a line change miscommunication puts Matt Grzelcyk behind the 8-ball. And the 8-ball ended up being Brayden Point darting around the net on his backhand and then having plenty of time in front to lift a shot over Jarry. 2-1 Pens with 14:19 to play.

At this point, you had to know what was coming next. The Pens try to defend and hold on but they can’t do it. Cirelli collects a deflected puck behind the net and darts out. He centers and it goes in maybe bouncing on its own, maybe from Hagel on the doorstep. Either way, it’s 2-2 with 7:11 to play and Pittsburgh has seen another lead evaporate in the third period.

No one can break the tie before regulation ends.

Overtime

As usual, NHL 3v3 overtime is mostly tactical and focused on puck control as the primary goal. There are a couple shot attempts blocked or go wide but there are no shots on goal for either team through the first 3:58 of extra time until Brayden Point ended the game. That goal was even a function of a shot attempt that Pittsburgh stymied, but Jarry was aggressively out on his angle and left the cage open for Point to tuck it in when the fortunate direction of the puck slid his way.

Some thoughts

• It was a fast-moving first period, there were only 10 faceoffs in the first 15 minutes and three of them involved the start of the game, a penalty and a reset after the first goal. Not too many whistles in between to make for lot of long stretches of action.
• For some reason, the Pens have always matched up well against the Lightning; winning six of seven coming into tonight and hanging tough enough to get an OT point tonight in days where good teams usually beat them like a drum. Strange oddity there, tonight was only Tampa’s fifth regular season win in the history of PPG Paints Arena, which has been around for 14+ years.
• It was partially influenced by being shorthanded for four minutes in the first period, but interesting nonetheless to see Owen Pickering (7:41) second on the team in ice time at the first intermission, only a little behind Erik Karlsson (7:48). It was good to see Pickering out there against Kucherov and the other top dogs on the Tampa power play. Welcome to the NHL, kid! He’s look the part so far, quite the pleasant surprise.
• The Pens’ PK had given up a goal in four straight games but stepped up big to go 3-for-3 in this game. So there’s a small positive.
• Really good game by Jarry, particularly early on. He was holding the Lightning at bay and playing the part of a capable goalie. Easily his best game of the season in the NHL, which is encouraging to see him make a tangible step forward.
• Tonight marks eight blown multi-goal leads for the Pens in just 21 games this season (of which they’re 3-3-2 in). Each passing one ought to bring less surprise and anger Despite the multiple factors that lead to such an issue, it was mostly was water finding its level tonight. After two periods shots were 22-15 TB and expected goals were 1.9 - 1.2 in favor of the Lightning, yet the actual score was 2-0 Pittsburgh. The Pens were extremely fortunate to ever hold a multi-goal lead in this game. Games are 60 minutes long for a reason and it allows the better team to rise back to at least even. More than anything that seems like what happens when the Pens blow a lead these days, Pittsburgh is unable to be good enough to beat the clock and hold often times superior teams when they are pushing hard for goals.
• But about the only disappointing aspect was if the Pens could have held that lead for a few more minutes Tampa would have pulled their goalie. Mario Lemieux scored his 600th on an empty net, and the tease of Crosby getting the chance to do the same was right there. Alas, it wasn’t to be on this night.

The Pens get two days without games before gearing up for a weekend Friday/Saturday slate of home games against Winnipeg and Utah.