The sweat hadn’t yet dried from a 61-plus minute hockey game. The Zambonis still hadn’t cleared the ice where Sidney Crosby celebrated his overtime game winner. And two Penguins defensemen were still being evaluated for injuries.
But in the immediate aftermath of the Penguins’ come-from-behind, 5-4 overtime win over the Washington Capitals, coach Mike Sullivan took a moment to look down the road at what this game and these two points in the season’s infancy might mean for this team.
“This might be one we look back on and say, ‘What a wild game it was,’” Sullivan said. “We certainly didn’t play all that great, but we found a way. That’s got to be an important part of our team identity — making sure we scratch and claw and we grind and we hang in there and we fight till the end until that last buzzer sounds. If we do, we give ourselves a chance. That’s what we did tonight.”
Few would be surprised to read that Crosby, whose fingerprints are already all over the Stanley Cup, was the one who potted the game-winner. But, the ones who turned the game off early in the second period when it looked so lopsided, may be surprised to find out it ended with a celebration at all.
The Penguins (2-2-0) have twice during this early season talked about how they played well, but didn’t get the result to verify their performance. Tuesday was the opposite.
They trailed 3-1 after the first period with the lone bright spot coming from Kasperi Kapanen. The Finnish winger, who was late to training camp due to work visa delays, was eased into his Penguins debut by playing about 10 minutes, most of it on the fourth line.
But that was enough to show the speed everyone has been talking since he was acquired this offseason with a package that included a first-round pick. On a play that looked innocent enough, Kapanen burned through the neutral zone to catch two Washington defensemen flatfooted. He sliced across ice and rifled a shot that handcuffed goalie Vitek Vanecek. Colton Sceviour was there for the tap-in.
However, Pittsburgh fan favorite Tom Wilson scored just eight seconds later and then again before the period ended to send the Penguins into the first intermission trailing by a pair of goals.
“I wish I had an explanation for the start,” Sullivan said. “It wasn’t very good, obviously. Our players knew it. I told them that in between periods. We’ve got to have a will to win here. We’ve got to be a hungry team.”
Special teams and a dangerous hit changed the shape of the game in the second period. On a 5-on-3 power play, Jake Guentzel buried a tap-in goal on an assist from Bryan Rust to pull the Penguins within one.
After the Capitals again stretched the lead to two on a goal from Evgeny Kuznetsov, the visitors had a chance to put the game away when they went on a 5-on-3 power play of their own. Instead, they let the Penguins right back in it. A beautiful pass from goalie Casey DeSmith sprung Teddy Blueger on a breakaway to pull the Penguins within one. Well, at least it will go down as a pass on the stat sheet.
“I was just trying to get it down the ice,” DeSmith said. “Teddy was in the right place at the right time. That just worked out great. It was very lucky, but I’ll take it.”
The temperature of the rivalry game was cranked up a many more notches when T.J. Oshie delivered a high-hard hit on Marcus Pettersson in the neutral zone. Pettersson, defenseless and blindsided, during the impact lay on the ice and had to be tended to by the Penguins medical staff.
Oshie was initially assessed a five-minute major but the referees changed the call to just a two-minute minor for interference. It didn’t matter much to Evgeni Malkin. He ripped a one-timer from the right circle to tie the score at 4.
“Obviously, it was a pretty bad hit,” Blueger said. “You hate to see your teammate get hurt like that… The guys were pretty fired up to make him pay for it.”
The Penguins entered the game missing one regular lefty in Mike Matheson. Pettersson’s injury took away one more. And then Juuso Riikola, who took the final shift of the second period, did not return for the third. After the game, Sullivan said both are being evaluated for upper-body injuries.
That left the Penguins with just four healthy blueliners to skate in the final 20 minutes: Kris Letang, Brian Dumoulin, John Marino and Chad Ruhwedel.
“Five [defensemen] is a chore for any team,” Crosby said. “But four? I thought they did a really good job of managing that. … That was a huge performance from all those guys to find a way to get it done.”
The Penguins tried to play smart with just 20 minutes separating them from at least one point. Then in overtime, Guentzel gained the zone and dished the puck back to Letang for one-timer. Crosby was there to scoop the rebound and deposit it in the back of the net.
The Penguins have now overcome two sluggish starts to put together a modest two-game winning streak. They continue their first homestand of the season with a two-game series against the New York Rangers, beginning Friday night at 7 p.m.
“It wasn’t pretty by any stretch,” Sullivan said. “We’re well aware of that. We’ve got to get a whole lot better in a lot of areas. But, we found a way.”
Mike DeFabo: mdefabo@post-gazette.com and Twitter @MikeDeFabo.
First Published: January 20, 2021, 3:16 a.m.
