The Penguins put an end to their four-game skid with a relieving 6-3 victory against the San Jose Sharks at the PPG Paints Arena on Thursday, March 14th. Pittsburgh scored three goals in the third period the 6-3 final to hand the Sharks their second straight loss following a 2-1 win against the Ottawa Senators that ended their nine-game losing streak. Tristan Jarry made a total of 29 saves for Pittsburgh.
Sharks lineup against the Penguins:
Barabanov – Granlund – Zetterlund
Zadina – Eklund – Kunin
Bordeleau – Sturm – Kostin
Smith – Carpenter – Bailey
Ferraro – Burroughs
Thrun – Vlasic
Addison
Chrona
Cooley
Penguins lineup against the Sharks:
Bunting – Crosby – Rust
O’Connor – Malkin – Rakell
Smith – Eller – Puustinen
Bemstrom – Acciari – Carter
Pettersson – Letang
Graves – Karlsson
Ludvig – Joseph
Jarry
Nedeljkovic
Noel Acciari recorded his fourth of the season to put the Penguins in a 1-0 lead at 9:32 of the first frame to end his 21-game goal drought, last scoring on the 31st of December. Acciari deflected a point shot from Erik Karlsson. Tying the game at 1-1 to get San Jose on the board, Fabian Zetterlund put in a rebound off a shot from Calen Addison just inside the crease. This goal was Zetterlund’s 17th of the season, an NHL career-high. With 59 seconds remaining in the opening 20, Marc-Edouard Vlasic went for the 2-1 lead for the Sharks with his sixth goal of the season when he jerked a sharp-angle shot on goal, rebounding off Marcus Pettersson’s knee. This goal was his first since he had a three-game goal streak from January 27-31.
Tying the game back up, 2-2, Jeff Carter struck his 18th goal against the San Jose Sharks (ranking in the top three among active skaters in the NHL) at 15:49 of the middle frame. He took a backhanded pass from Emil Bemstrom, who had circled the net before sending the puck off to Carter, and he tapped it in. Evgeni Malkin put Pittsburgh back on top 3-2 when he backhanded a rebound of a shot by Drew O’Connor into the net off the inside of Magnus Chrona’s pad from behind the goal line. Klim Kostin netted his first as a Shark to tie it back up with a one-timer off a backhanded pass from Mikael Granlund.
John Ludvig went for his second of the season to put the Penguins back in the lead with a wrister through traffic, from the point, early into the third at 17:22. Extending the lead to 5-3, a shot by Pierre-Olivier Joseph’s one-timer had deflected off Rickard Rakell‘s skate and past Magnus Chrona. In the final two minutes of the game, Bryan Rust struck the Shark’s empty net for the 6-3 final to end that four-game skid.
Tristan Jarry on the Penguins’ 6-3 victory: “I thought the guys did a good job. We talked a lot about going to the net over the last couple of days and we got a reward for it, so it’s nice. I think that will build our confidence for our group just knowing that we got to the net, we’ll get rewarded with those.”
Drew O’Connor on the win and Tristan Jarry: “It’s obviously been a struggle to score goals the last few, so to score six feels pretty good. It just feels good to get back in the win column… It was a bad start by us, but I thought we responded well, we can’t let that happen,” – “I thought he’s played really well. Like I said, we haven’t been scoring goals and we’ve been still in the last few games so, that’s because of him. He’s been making big saves for us.”
Notes:
– John Ludvig had a goal and an assist, and both Drew O’Connor and PO Joseph recorded two assists.
– Sidney Crosby’s secondary assist on Bryan Rust’s goal gave him his fifth assist during a 10-game goal drought, and he leads the Penguins with 32 goals in 65 games. Erik Karlsson has the most points among all defensemen on a new team this NHL season with 45 points, eight goals, and 37 assists.
– Each Klim Kostin and Marc-Edouard Vlasic had a goal and an assist… Mikael Granlund recorded two assists and Magnus Chrona made 25 saves for San Jose.
– The San Jose Sharks used 13 forwards and five defensemen without Jacob MacDonald out due to illness.
– The Sharks did not score on their two power plays, ending a five-straight game streak with a power play goal.
