Evgeni Malkin scored his 500th career goal Wednesday night at PPG Paints Arena as the Penguins rallied to beat the Buffalo Sabres, 6-5, in a wild overtime win.
Malkin got his milestone goal with 16:34 remaining in regulation. He fell to the ice and from on his backside he swatted a shot behind goalie Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen.
Penguins players emptied their bench and mobbed Malkin behind the Buffalo net as the crowd at PPG Paints Arena gave Malkin a long and loud standing ovation.
“I score and I just start celebrating. [Bryan Rust] hugged me, like quick. And I see guys jump onto the ice,” said Malkin, the 48th player all time to reach 500 goals.
Malkin is the fourth active NHL player to reach that milestone. The others are Alex Ovechkin, Steven Stamkos and his longtime Penguins teammate, Sidney Crosby.
Geno joined Crosby and Mario Lemieux as players with 500 goals for Pittsburgh.
“Those are great names,” Malkin said before joking, “Not bad myself, you know.”
But after the celebration died down, the Sabres stunned the Penguins with two goals 40 seconds apart. JJ Peterka got the first one, beating Joel Blomqvist on a partial breakaway. Then, after Blomqvist had made several saves during another Sabres push, he allowed Ryan McLeod to snipe his glove from long range.
The Penguins pulled their goalie in the final moments. And with chaos around the Sabres crease, Rickard Rakell banged home a rebound with 46 seconds to go.
Crosby then capped another comeback with a power-play goal 1:38 into overtime.
“We have players who come up in big moments,” Lars Eller said. “They did again tonight.”
The game turned after Tristan Jarry was pulled in favor of Blomqvist. The rookie stopped 26 of 28 shots in relief, giving Pittsburgh a chance to get back in the game.
He stuffed Peterka and Zach Benson on breakaways early in the second period. Then, after Drew O’Connor got the Penguins back within one, Blomqvist slid over to kick out a shot from Alex Tuch on another odd-man rush for the visitors.
“He was huge for us,” Ryan Graves said. “Bloomer came in and made some really big saves, a couple of timely saves. That’s important in a game that’s tight. That game was a little loose, so kudos to him. It’s tough to come off the bench like that.”
O’Connor scored short-handed on Luukkonen to make it 3-2 midway through the second. Noel Acciari won a battle on the wall and O’Connor tallied on a 2-on-1.
A few minutes later, Jesse Puljujarvi kept his remarkable comeback story going by whipping a backhand by Luukkonen. Eller saucered the pass that sprung him, then Puljujarvi — who overcame double hip surgery — made a sweet move in tight.
After Malkin’s milestone, Rakell and Crosby scored to win Wednesday’s thriller.
Jarry gave up goals on the first two shots he faced to put Pittsburgh in a 2-0 hole.
The first one could be the ugliest goal you see all season. Jarry stepped behind his net to play the puck, hesitated and got his pocket picked. He scrambled back into his crease, only to let Tage Thompson beat him on a wraparound 43 seconds in.
Jordan Greenway made it 2-0 just over two minutes later. It was another bad goal.
When Jarry made a routine save on the third Sabres shot, frustrated Penguins fans sarcastically cheered the goalie, who has looked uncomfortable and unconfident.
Rust scored on the power play, his first goal of the season, to give Pittsburgh a little life. With an assist, Crosby hit a milestone, too. It was his 1,600th career point.
But Jarry allowed another just 32 seconds later and was pulled from the game.
That one was not on Jarry. The Sabres executed on a 2-on-1 rush and Peterka put a heck of a shot under the crossbar. But coach Mike Sullivan had seen enough.
The PPG Paints Arena crowd roared when Blomqvist came in 11:33 into the game.
“It was just a tough start for our whole team, quite honestly,” Sullivan said. “I don’t think it even close to our best game out there. We just felt like, given the way the game started, that it was the right thing to make the switch. And I think Tristan was a victim of that to a certain extent. He was also part of it to a certain extent.”
Jarry made just two saves on five shots before getting the hook. And for the second time in his three starts this season, he put the Penguins in a multi-goal deficit.
The Penguins — looking to avoid another poor start to the season — are in a tough spot with the two-time All-Star. Jarry is just about unplayable right now, and he is in just the second season of a five-year deal that pays him $5.4 million annually.
Meanwhile, Blomqvist has been excellent over his first three NHL appearances.
And Alex Nedeljkovic, who started the year on injured reserve with a lower-body injury, appears to be on the verge of returning. He has now strapped on the pads for a few full-team sessions, including Wednesday’s morning skate in Cranberry.
So what are they going to do with Jarry? And will Blomqvist get to stick around?
Those are worries for another day. First, the Penguins will celebrate a crazy win.
“Everything was perfect for me tonight,” said one relieved Russian. “Score. Win.”
Ice chips
• Malkin is the 20th player ever to score 500 goals with one team. The Penguins and the Montreal Canadiens are the only NHL teams with three in their history.
• Malkin had a four-point night. He leads the league in scoring with 11 points.
• It took Crosby 1,277 games to eclipse 1,600 points. Only four players needed fewer. They were Wayne Gretzky, Lemieux, Marcel Dionne and Jaromir Jagr.
• Crosby had a goal and two assists, one of which was on Malkin’s 500th goal.
• The Penguins assigned Rutger McGroarty to the American Hockey League before the game, a move that was neither a surprise nor a concern. He played three NHL games last week. The winger didn’t record a point and posted a minus-1 rating.
• Jack St. Ivany replaced Ryan Shea on the blue line. Shea made his season debut Monday in Montreal. Valtteri Puustinen was also a healthy scratch Wednesday.
• Sullivan said Blake Lizotte, who has been out with a concussion since Sept. 29, has started skating and on Wednesday ramped up the intensity of his workouts.
Stat n’at
2 — Russian-born players who scored 500 goals: Malkin and Ovechkin.
They said it
“Just really happy for Geno,” Crosby said. “For him to get his 500th and just to get the win, it was a wild one. Early in the season we’ve got to find ways to still learn from these, but for him to get it the way he got it and find a way to win, that was huge.”
Coming up
Penguins players have a scheduled day off Thursday ahead of Friday’s home game against the Carolina Hurricanes. Their annual Western Canada trip is after that.
First Published: October 17, 2024, 2:05 a.m.
Updated: October 17, 2024, 5:01 p.m.