Musings: Penguins Pull Off Third Comeback of the Week

WOW!

What else can you say about the Pittsburgh Penguins at this point? A whirlwind of a week that included four games in seven calendar days spread across three time zones culminated with another heart-stopping, come-from-behind effort on Saturday night in Salt Lake City.

“The points are so important right now,” Head Coach Dan Muse said. “You come off a game that you don't like, you always want to bounce back. It shows a lot with the group, too.”

Noel Acciari put the exclamation point on the evening, scoring the winning goal less than four minutes after Utah had tied the score at 3-3. Acciari’s tally not only secured a 4-3 victory, but it summed up the heart, grit, and determination that his line, in particular, and the entire team, have displayed all season.

Acciari’s goal came when he outmuscled Utah defender Nate Schmidt to find a Parker Wotherspoon rebound. As Nick Schmaltz was also bearing down on his back, Acciari coolly slid the puck along the ice over the goal line.

Not only did the Acciari goal hold up as the winner, but it came 48 hours after his unit endured a rare off night. Combined with their shutdown work defensively down the stretch, those three were critical components of this much-needed win.

“They’ve been awesome for us,” Muse said about his fourth line. “I’m surprised that it took this long (for them to have an off night). … They’ve just stuck to their identity for so long. Last game, they weren’t happy with it. They had an off night. They responded, they played a huge role.”

All of the offensive fireworks that erupted over the final 30 minutes held up because Stuart Skinner shut the door down the stretch. Skinner made a handful of strong saves over the final three minutes, beginning when his glove got just enough of Michael Carcone’s breakaway attempt to direct the biscuit off the crossbar. Skinner was zoned in from there, locking down the crucial two points in the standings while under siege in ‘Stutah.’

While the Penguins won the game during the high-flying, back-and-forth third period, Pittsburgh set the stage for its third dramatic finish since last Sunday during the latter stages of the third period. Tallies by Anthony Mantha and Tommy Novak erased what had been to that point a 2-0 Utah lead.

“To be honest, I thought it was the really small things,” Skinner described of what he saw from the opposite crease to begin the second period. “I think we started winning 50-50 battles. We weren’t giving them as many turnovers as we did in the first.”

Pittsburgh drew a critical 1:27 minutes on the two-man advantage trailing by two in the second period. After a well-placed timeout by Muse, Mantha continued his career season. Holding the puck patiently for several seconds to the left of Utah netminder Karel Vejmelka, Mantha calmly lifted a wrist shot over the blocker of the Mammoth netminder, cutting Pittsburgh’s deficit to 2-1.

That tally was Mantha’s career-high-tying 25^th goal. It came 48 hours after he hit a new season high in points. Mantha now has an active four -game point streak (4G-2A) after also adding an assist on Novak’s goal.

While Novak hasn’t reached any career highs yet, he continues to put himself on pace to do so after scoring for the third time in the past five games. Novak’s game-tying tally occurred when he found the loose puck of a Wotherspoon shot, then flipped the rubber almost like a golf chip shot into the cage for the equalizer. It was a great reward for Novak, who began the offensive sequence with a strong entry into the Utah goal.

“I think we got back to playing the way that we wanted to play in that second period,” Muse said. “The guys responded. You’re going to have off shifts, that is a part of hockey. You don’t want to have periods where we don’t play the style of play that we want to play … Credit to the guys, they responded.”

Riding the heat wave from its late surge, the Penguins took their first lead of the night early in the third period. Bryan Rust capitalized on a power-play to put the Pens in front 3-2. That tally by Rust was his third in three games, as he inches towards a second-straight 30-goal season.

Rust’s marker was the second power-play goal of the night by the Penguins. They scored man-advantage markers in four of the five games they played without top scorers Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin.

The lead Rust gave the Penguins didn’t last long. Ian Cole, who won a pair of Stanley Cups as a shutdown defenseman for Pittsburgh a decade ago, scored off the rush to tie the score at 3-3. Cole’s goal gave the Mammoth life, but in the end, it was just a minor setback for Pittsburgh.

While all was well that ended well, all those late-game positives came after the Pens faced their fourth-straight multiple-goal deficit. This time, Utah held a 2-0 advantage within the first seven minutes that absolutely told an indicative story of how the game was played in the opening frame.

Utah’s quick-strike assault continued another rough trend that has evolved over the past week. It marked the fourth-straight game that the opposition has struck first. But as already noted, those became mere footnotes by the end of the night. It would just behoove the Pens to end those trends promptly.

Looking ahead for the Penguins, they’re now en route to Denver on Sunday afternoon. Pittsburgh is now 1-1-1 on its season-long, five-game road trip. Things don’t get easier, as the Penguins will face the NHL’s top team in the Colorado Avalanche on Monday, followed by a rematch against the Carolina Hurricanes on Wednesday to conclude the trek. They’ll enter those contests riding high.

To keep things on a positive note, Malkin will return to the lineup on Monday at Ball Arena. While some counted the Penguins out when Malkin’s five-game suspension was announced, Pittsburgh went 2-1-2 over that stretch. Crosby continued to participate in the morning skate, this time being accompanied by Justin Brazeau. The Pens will need those reinforcements as the degree of difficulty in their schedule only intensifies over the next few weeks before their next reprieve.