Sharks rally against Penguins, settle for lone point as road trip ends
San Jose Sharks rookie centerman Macklin Celebrini idolized Pittsburgh Penguins captain Sidney Crosby as a young kid. He owned a Crosby jersey and a Crosby stick and remembers seeing him hoist the Stanley Cup with the Penguins in both 2016 and 2017.
Saturday night, Celebrini saw Crosby score career NHL goal No. 599 early in the second period to give the Penguins a three-goal lead. But he also saw the Sharks respond for the second time in five days by scoring three straight goals to tie the game.
However, after a scoreless overtime, the Penguins outscored the Sharks 3-2 in a four-round shootout, escaping with a 4-3 win before an announced crowd of 18,194 at PPG Paints Arena.
Crosby, Anthony Beauvillier, and Evgeni Malkin all scored for the Penguins in the shootout. Mikael Granlund and William Eklund scored for the Sharks, who ended their road trip against Metropolitan Division teams with a 1-1-2 record.
Saturday’s result mirrored the Sharks’ game against the Philadelphia Flyers on Tuesday. They fell behind by three goals in a slow start before rallying to tie the game. San Jose also lost that one at Well Fargo Center 4-3 in a shootout.
After Crosby’s goal at the 4:19 mark of the second period gave the Penguins a 3-0 lead, the Sharks responded with two goals from Tyler Toffoli and one from Granlund. Toffoli’s second goal at the 11:40 mark of the third period tied the game 3-3.
Goalie Mackenzie Blackwood, who came into the game for starter Vitek Vanecek at the start of the second period, was brilliant in relief and finished with 25 saves, including six in overtime.
Blackwood also had a 44-save shutout in the Sharks’ 1-0 win over the New Jersey Devils last Sunday to start the road trip.
The Sharks now return home and play the Detroit Red Wings on Monday to start a busy week that also includes road games against the Dallas Stars on Wednesday and the St. Louis Blues on Thursday.
Toffoli scored a power-play goal at the 12:05 mark of the second period off an assist to start the comeback. Then Granlund scored his eighth of the season at the 6:56 mark of the third period off an assist from Fabian Zetterlund.
The Sharks (5-10-4) trailed 2-0 less than seven minutes into the first period.
Bryan Rust took a pass from Michael Bunting behind the net. Sharks defenseman Cody Ceci skated behind the net to try and check Rust, but the veteran forward went the other way and had enough time and space to backhand a shot over Vanecek for a 1-0 Penguins lead just 61 seconds into the game.
The Penguins had their next goal, one by Malkin at the 5:46 mark, taken off the board after a Sharks’ coaches challenge. But Pittsburgh would get another goal soon enough.
After the Sharks failed to clear the puck inside their own zone, rookie defenseman Owen Pickering slid a pass over to Drew O’Connor, who fired a puck toward the Sharks net. Vanecek made the first save, but the rebound came right to Jesse Puljujarvi, who scored his second goal of the season on an open net at the 6:34 mark.
Vanecek made eight saves in the first period but did not start the second for undisclosed reasons, with the Sharks only saying at the time that Vanecek was unlikely to return. He never came back to the Sharks’ bench.
Blackwood came in on relief for San Jose at the start of the second period, and Crosby quickly victimized him.
Blackwood stopped an initial shot by Crosby from inside the blue line. But the puck returned to Crosby on a pass from Erik Karlsson, and he fired a shot from the point that got past Blackwood for a 3-0 Pittsburgh lead.
The goal was the 599th of Crosby’s career and his fifth in 23 regular season games against the Sharks.
Saturday’s game marked the first time that Will Smith and Celebrini started an NHL regular season game on the same line and played against Crosby and Malkin.
Smith and Celebrini finished Thursday’s game against the New York Rangers on the same line after Nico Sturm left the game with an upper-body injury, and those two, with Barclay Goodrow, created a handful of scoring chances at even strength in the first period.
Smith has had an up-and-down start to his professional career and was moved from the middle to the wing earlier this week. While drafted by the Sharks in 2023 as a centerman, Smith played on the wing in games against the Rangers and Flyers on this road trip.