Sharks rally against Penguins, settle for 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 Monday. 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.
“It’s not ideal to be down in games, so we obviously don’t want to be doing that,” Toffoli said. “But I think for us and our team mentally, and all that, I guess (rallying is) a good thing. A good way to look at it.”
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.
“After tonight, I don’t feel like we’re that close, to be honest with you,” Sharks coach Ryan Warsofsky said. “We’ve still got a way to go. Until every guy in there is believing in that, it’s going to be this up-and-down of a game that we’re going to see.”
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. The Sharks only said that he was unlikely to return, and he never returned to the Sharks’ bench. Warsofsky didn’t have an update on Vanecek after the game.
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 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 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.
Celebrini, on Saturday morning, remembered getting Crosby’s “jersey, getting his stick, always wanting to be like him, watching his highlights. So I couldn’t be more excited to play against him now.
“He’s been the face of the league for so long that it doesn’t even feel real. He’s been amazing for (players), just the way he leads, the way he plays every night. He just shows you how to do things the right way and be a pro. To be able to watch him and see how he does things, it’s been cool.”