Penguins/Avalanche Recap: Crosby scores four points, but Colorado comes back to win the game

Pregame

Still no Ryan Graves or Jeff Carter available today, so the lines remain as they have been lately. Alex Nedeljkovic gets the start after Tristan Jarry got pulled last game.

The host Avalanche are going with the following lineup today.

First period

It’s a 12 noon local start that appears to catch the home team sleeping in. Colorado doesn’t look sharp at the beginning, The Penguins get six of the first eight shots on goal but Jesse Puljujarvi takes an offensive zone penalty.

Pittsburgh’s PK stays strong with great work by Lars Eller and Drew O’Connor in particular to break up passes and get the puck out of the zone a few times.

Puljujarvi gets out of the penalty box and has some pep in his step going to the front of the net. Reilly Smith makes a nice play and it gets to Sidney Crosby back deep who backhands one to the net. Puljujarvi is there to smack it into the net before Devon Toews can defend him 1-0.

The Pens keep going, Crosby makes a brilliant setup for Bryan Rust but Alexandar Georgiev makes a nice save. Crosby steals the puck from the Avs going up the ice and feeds Rust again. This time Rust dips his shoulder and skates around Josh Manson and completes the power move by beating Georgiev to the far post. 2-0.

Quite the start for Pittsburgh. Shots are 16-4 Pens. A surprising domination against a top team.

Second period

Colorado wakes up and comes to life in the second. They almost stuff a puck under and through Nedeljkovic but he holds strong. The Pens get a power play, it’s shaky and the Avs even get a 3-on-1 rush in the dying seconds. They hit a post but can’t score.

Momentum is clearly tipping towards the Avs, but Crosby strikes before the home team can take over. It started on a 2-on-1 with O’Connor looking to pass it 100% of the way to Crosby. The goalie made the save but the puck got back to Valtteri Puustinen who sent it on its side down for Crosby. The captain made one of his classic bad angle chips up and to the top of the net. 3-0 game.

Crosby’s big day continues as he gets a fourth point on the fourth Penguin goal. This time it’s a routine pass to P.O. Joseph who flicks a long range shot at net. It goes in with an uncredited assist for Emil Bemstrom completely taking the eyes of the goalie away with a great screen. 4-0.

Only 25 seconds later, the Avs finally score. They take a play out of the Pens’ playbook with traffic in front leading to aid Sean Walker’s point shot to make it in. 4-1.

Colorado gets another before the period ends, they’re surging and Erik Karlsson’s weak clearing attempt doesn’t make it. Brandon Duhaime and Yakov Trenin strong in front to get the Avs back to a 4-2 game.

The second period is even, the Pens leave it the same way they came in, up by two goals. That’s the good news. The bad news is the Avalanche, the NHL’s highest scoring team, look like the sleeping giant that’s starting to wake up over the last few minutes of that period and have 20 more minutes to work with.

Third period

The Avs’ buildup continues. Nathan MacKinnon keeps his home point streak alive by pulling up and throwing a great pass across the ice for Jonathan Drouin to one-time. 4-3.

Nedeljkovic leaves the game after a collision with Casey Mittlestadt. Tristan Jarry in cold with 14:46 to play.

Colorado is all over the Pens. Jarry scrambles after losing his net and crawls back in time to top a shot. A long sequence of zone time leads to Marcus Pettersson tripping MacKinnon to grant another Avs power play. Pittsburgh kills it but soon after Colorado pulls the reverse of what happened earlier. This time it’s Drouin sending a cross-ice pass for MacKinnon to hammer home. 4-4 game.

After the goal, Nedeljkovic comes back in for Jarry. No one can score again.

Overtime

Colorado controls the puck and finally puts the Pens out of their misery with the OT GWG. Drouin zips right by Letang, Nedeljkovic gambles with the poke check and doesn’t even come anywhere close to lead for an easy finish.

Some thoughts

• If the Pens had it within themselves to play to the level they were in the first period, they’d be in business. Sadly, that level hasn’t been sustainable, and not just to the degree of taking 16/20 shots but to look so hungry, fast and force the other team into mistakes instead of taking them.
• Such as, the first goal, Toews is a heck of a defenseman. But how many times has that been Graves or Pettersson this season just standing in front of net, unable to stop an opponent from scoring on the doorstep? It’s not the hundreds of times it feels like, but it’s happened enough to leave a memory. Nice to see that happens to even top teams sometimes.
• It’s funny how things turn on a dime, just on Friday night Crosby and Rust were almost lifeless out there. Today they were playing at the top of their games. Great game by Crosby, no doubt with a little extra boost to play his good friend Nathan MacKinnon.
• It was another tough day for Noel Acciari. The forward was hobbled by blocking a shot early and missed some time during the game. He attempted to play through it but couldn’t, missing the entire third period. The puck has not been his friend this season, Acciari has taken more than one injury from blocking it. Tough gig to have with unfortunate results.
• Liked to see Mike Sullivan go with a Malkin-Crosby-Rakell line in the third period after Colorado’s power play in the third. Not that it’s a revolutionary or creative idea but the Pens were on the back of their heels so much that it was great for those guys just to control the puck and keep it out for a bit. Next shift out MacKinnon scores the game-tying goal to reduce the impact down, but liked the idea just the same. That’s the type of move that puts the players in position to stem the tide.
• The Avs are such a strong team. The tide turned demonstratively when they scored their first goal. They’ve scored the most goals of any NHL team this year, they know they could toy around with the Penguins, get a slow start, spot them four goals. Didn’t even matter.
• The TNT crew repeatedly mentioned the elevation and if that might have caught up to the Pens or zapped them as the game went along and they melted away. Perhaps it was, but I’d think the fact Colorado is so darn good mattered a lot more to them being more used to playing at high elevation or being in better condition because of it.
• In most times, it would be devastating to have a big lead turn into an OT loss. But only getting one point in the standings after being up 4-0 and getting a four point Crosby game is close to the best of all worlds for getting a better draft pick and still seeing some No. 87 magic out there.

The Pens fly back home and see Jake Guentzel and the Hurricanes on Tuesday.