Penguins/Oilers Recap: Pens exorcise Edmonton demons, finally beat Oil

Sidney Crosby has three points, and the Penguins defeat the Oilers for the first time since 2019

Pregame

Despite being a game-time decision, the Penguins don’t get Evgeni Malkin back in the lineup for this game. Alex Nedeljkovic in the cage, same lineup as before.

The visiting Oilers bring the following lineup to the party

First period

“We weren’t ready,” Oilers coach Kris Knoblauch said after the game. “[The Penguins] outworked us, outskated us. The attention to detail wasn’t there... The first 20 minutes we took off & the deficit was too big for us to overcome.”

And so it was in this game. Rickard Rakell got Pittsburgh on the board 3:22 into the game by cleaning up a rebound from a Marcus Pettersson point shot for Rakell’s 21st goal of the season.

The Pens poured it on. Proud Notre Dame man Bryan Rust made a strong effort for the goal — much like Jerimiyah Love also did on this night in a different venue — and found his mark. 2-0 Pens.

Pittsburgh’s third line got to work, Jesse Puljujarvi demonstrated an active stick to knock a pass away, Drew O’Connor built on that with some beastly work on the boards and centered for Kevin Hayes. The ol’ vet punched in a shot to put the Pens up 3-0 before the period has halfway over and put a stamp on this game.

The Oilers would show up, scoring on the rush. Nedeljkovic did well to hold the fort on the first shot but the whole team was out of sorts and eventually Leon Draisaitl does what he does to score his lead-leading 30th goal of the season.

Not letting Edmonton get back in it, Bryan Rust made the second best pass a Notre Dame player made all night to find Drew O’Connor for his sixth goal of the season to push the Pens back up to a commanding 4-1 lead.

Second period

“Obviously not the start we wanted, but at the time, it was just a matter of looking forward,” Mattias Ekholm said in the post-game. “Can’t really do much about the past, so I thought we came out better in the second, gained some ground on them, but at the end of the night, we can’t dig ourselves that big of a hole. It’s hard to climb out of it in this League, and we certainly had to pay the price tonight.”

Ekholm was coy with his assessment, the Oilers out-shot the Penguins 21-6 in the middle frame. But it was Pittsburgh who struck first in the period when Sidney Crosby settled down a Michael Bunting pass and fired it into the net to extend the lead to 5-1.

The rest of the period would be an Edmonton onslaught. Nedeljkovic was wheeling and dealing but after a failed clearing attempt, Draisaitl made the most of the extra opportunity and ripped his 31st of the season. 5-2.

Edmonton got another goal back before the period was out, striking on their lethal power play. Ryan Nugent-Hopkins pulled the puck back then leaned into a big wrister. 5-3.

Third period

Edmonton pushed in the third, out-shooting the Pens 15-7. Nedeljkovic was ready for them all and no more goals were scored.

Some thoughts

• Another milestone night for Crosby, who recorded three points. He passed Joe Sakic to take over ninth place in career NHL scoring.
• And Crosby’s three-point game was 184th such one of his career with 3 or more points, which passed Phil Esposito and Mark Messier for fifth most in NHL history.
• The Pens broke a four-game losing streak (the last three coming in OT/SO) and did it in style to knock down a team that had their number lately, to put it mildly. Edmonton won seven straight against the Pens before tonight, outscoring Pittsburgh 37-9 along the way. Big time step up to erase that bad history.

“We haven’t really been happy with our play against them overall over the last few years here. We’ve been giving them way too much respect,” Marcus Pettersson said after the game. “I thought the first, we came out, played on our toes and really didn’t give them space. We outskated them. Skated all over them. I thought we had some swagger there in the first and we competed. They’re going to get looks, they’re a really good team. We competed our (butt) off tonight.”

And so it was for the Penguins to earn a big victory. They now gear up for two home games this weekend, starting Saturday mid-afternoon/early-evening.