It wasn’t how they drew it up, but the Penguins escaped Ottawa with two points after a 5-4 victory over the Senators in a shootout on Thursday night.
The Penguins jumped out to a 3-0 lead they seemed to let up over the final period and a half, and the Senators clawed back in it to tie the game at four.
“It wasn’t a good third period,” said head coach Mike Johnston. “I think when you look at a period like that, we have to make sure we learn from it and the big thing for me was that I thought we sat back a little bit.”
They have now won four of their last five games and the victory gave the Pens victories in games on back-to-back nights for the first time since mid-November.
The Penguins got off to their second hot start in as many nights, with Kris Letang scoring just 1:01 into the game on a backhanded wraparound attempt that bounced off the pad and stick of Ottawa netminder Robin Lehner before finding its way into the net.
At 9:57 of the first period, Rob Scuderi sprung Sidney Crosby on a breakaway and he buried a slapshot to extend the Pens lead.
The Penguins carried their lead into the second period, where Evgeni Malkin found the back of the net on a beautiful cross-ice pass from Blake Comeau.
A pair of penalties in the early third period gave the Senators the momentum. The Penguins killed Craig Adams’ tripping minor at 2:25, but Letang was immediately whistled for hooking and Mika Zinbanejad made a nifty move off the goal line to beat Penguins netminder Thomas Greiss with the man advantage.
The Penguins have now given up four power play goals in their last three games. The penalty kill was 1-for-3 on the night.
Mike Hoffman pushed the Senators to within one when he finished a beautiful give-and-go with Bobby Ryan from the right-wing faceoff circle.
Crosby regained the Penguins’ two-goal lead when he was the only one that could find the rebound of a Chris Kunitz shot and he poked it past Lehner at 14:53 of the third. It was his 19th goal of the season, and he is now just four points behind Chicago’s Patrick Kane for the NHL scoring lead.
The Senators fought back yet again, and Mark Stone pushed off Scuderi and fired through a crowd to beat Greiss at 15:51 and after the Senators won the ensuing faceoff, Eric Gryba found Kyle Turris, who split the Penguins defense and beat Greiss to force overtime.
Neither team scored in overtime, and David Perron was the lone shooter to score in the shootout. It was Greiss’ first shootout victory with the Penguins. He’s now 1-1 on the season.
The Penguins were outshot 33-29, including a 26-14 margin over the final two periods. For Greiss, it was the fourth straight game in which he gave up at least three goals and his save percentage is just .875 over that stretch.
With the win, the Pens kept pace with the first-place New York Islanders in the Metropolitan Division. The Islanders also won on Thursday night and lead the Penguins by one point after 55 games from each team.
Photo credit: NHL
