Penguins Blow 4-0 Lead, Fall to Red Wings in OT 5-4

The Pittsburgh Penguins fell to the Detroit Red Wings last night 5-4 in overtime at PPG Paints Arena. Goaltender Magnus Hellberg made 19 saves after he came into the game to start the second period, replacing Ville Husso, who allowed four goals on 12 shots. Detroit improved their record to 15-11-7 this season. Forward Jason Zucker scored two goals, forward Jeff Carter had a goal and an assist, and goaltender Casey DeSmith made 41 saves for the Penguins, which is a season-high for him. The Penguins are now 19-10-6 and have lost their last three and four out of five games.

In the first period, forward Drew O’Connor would give the Penguins a 1-0 lead just over two minutes in, scoring off a feed from forward Kasperi Kapanen to grab his first goal of the season in his sixth game. Jeff Carter would make it 2-0 Pens off a power-play goal at 10:15 off another feed from Kapanen. At 14:15, Jason Zucker would make it 3-0 Penguins with a tremendous solo effort to score on the backhand. With less than a minute left in the first period, Zucker would pot home his second goal on a power play to make it 4-0 Penguins. Jeff Carter’s assist gave him the 400th of his career. He became the 100th player in NHL history to record 400 goals and 400 assists in a career. Carter has 423 goals and 400 assists in 1,202 games in his career.

Just over seven minutes into the second period, forward Dylan Larkin would score on the power play to get the Red Wings on the board. At 14:32, forward Joe Veleno would cut the score in half to 4-2, tipping a shot from defenseman Ben Chiarot past DeSmith.

With five minutes left in the game, forward Jonatan Berggren would put the Red Wings within one goal, making it 4-3. At 16:52, forward David Perron scored off a one-timer to tie the game up at 4-4 for the Red Wings.

Just over two minutes into overtime, defenseman Jake Walman would put a backhander behind DeSmith to give the Red Wings the 5-4 win. The win marked the second time this season that a team has come back from down 4-0 to win a game. The Vancouver Canucks were the first team to do it, as they defeated the Montreal Canadiens 7-6 in overtime after trailing 4-0 on December 5th. It was also the fourth time in franchise history that the Red Wings won a game after being down 4-0. They defeated the Boston Bruins 8-5 on November 3rd, 1960, the Toronto Maple Leafs 5-4 on February 22nd, 1972, and the Leafs again 7-6 on December 4th, 1984.

Defenseman Mark Friedman made his season debut for the Penguins. He was recalled from the Wilkes-Barrie/Scranton Penguins (AHL) on December 13th. He had four hits and 14:30 of ice time.

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