It’s getting to that point in the season. The point where each game seems to carry that much more weight.
Where if you are going to make that trip to the playoffs, you have to prove that you are a playoff-caliber team. That’s exactly what the Penguins were looking to do tonight, as they played their division rivals.
The game got off to an inauspicious start for the Penguins with Columbus scoring on a two-on-one at the 5:05 mark of the first. Not the way Pens fans wanted this game to kick-off, particularly when facing one of the best goalies in the league, recently back from injury, in Sergei Bobrovsky.
The Pens weren’t intimidated by who was in the opposite crease though. They were back on the board later in the first with an absolute blast by Kris Letang on a nice feed from Evgeni Malkin. The first period would close out with a 1-1 tie.
The second period saw a flurry of activity which kicked off very early in the period. Just 45 seconds into the first, Chris Kunitz shoveled a loose puck into the net to give the Pens a 2-1 lead.
Just about two minutes later, taking a pass across the neutral zone, Cam Atkinson moved into and through the Penguins’ zone quickly. He made what was really quite a nice move to beat Marc-Andre Fleury and tie the game at 2.
Carl Hagelin, who had missed time recently but was back on the ice after clearing the concussion protocol, gave the Pens the lead at 4:47 of the second, with a backhander that beat Bobrovsky. That lead would hold up through the remainder of the second period.
With under five minutes remaining in the game, and the ice at 4-on-4, Ryan Murray hit the post with a shot, and the Pens were grateful to maintain the one goal lead. Not long after, Fleury denied a one-time taken by defenseman Seth Jones.
The Penguins would be able to hold off the Blue Jackets and get the two points in the standings, winning the contest by a final score of 3-2. Columbus led most of the statistical categories, including hits, faceoff wins, takeaways and blocked shots. However, the Penguins found a way to put the puck in the net one more time than Columbus in the statistical category that matters the most.
Link : http://penslabyrinth.com/2016/03/11/pittsburgh-penguins-sting-the-columbus-blue-jackets/
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