Smarting from a 7-2 drubbing by Boston, the Devils hosted a Penguins team riding high on a recent victory. Despite a determined effort, New Jersey couldn’t fend off a Pittsburgh rally on Friday, April 11th, ultimately falling 4-2 and absorbing its second straight loss. Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin each had a goal and an assist for the Penguins, who scored four unanswered goals in their victory. For the Devils, Erik Haula and Ondrej Palat managed to find the back of the net, but their tallies ultimately weren’t enough to stem the Penguins’ dominant surge. The Devils are third in the Metropolitan Division and will be playing the Carolina Hurricanes in the Eastern Conference First Round. The Penguins return home to host the Bruins, while the Devils take on the New York Islanders next at Prudential Center on Sunday, April 13th.
Pittsburgh Penguins Lineup:
Koivunen – Crosby – Rust
Heinen – Malkin – Rakell
Dewar – Hayes – Puustinen
Koppanen – Ponomarev – Bemstrom
Grzelcyk – Letang
Timmins – Karlsson
Graves – Shea
Jarry
Nedeljkovic
New Jersey Devils Lineup:
Noesen – Hischier – Bratt
Haula – Mercer – Meier
Palat – Glass – Sprong
Cotter – Lazar – Bastian
Hughes – Pesce
Dumoulin – Kovacevic
Dillon – Casey
Allen
Markstrom
Only 15 seconds into the opening frame, Erik Haula found the back of the net for New Jersey to give them a 1-0 lead for his 10th of the season when he scored on a snap shot inside the left post after he took a pass from Dawson Mercer, who picked up the loose puck before sending it over to Haula, who skated down the slot and put it past Tristan Jarry. Ondrej Palat pushed it to 2-0 at 13:44 when he deflected a shot by Cody Glass, who fired from the high slot off a pass from Seamus Casey past Jarry with his 15th goal of the season. Later in the first period, with 3:50 on the clock, Evgeni Malkin cut it 2-1 off a pass from Kevin Hayes, who received a pass from Erik Karlsson, and Malkin poked the puck at the right post that slid onto the outstretched left skate of Jake Allen. Attempting to clear the puck, Luke Hughes inadvertently backhanded it over the goal line. This had been Malkin’s 16th goal of the season.
Valtteri Puustinen tied it up 2-2 with a power-play goal early into the middle frame at 18:55 when the puck bounced off his left skate and in past Allen after Matt Grzelcyk made a pass to Malkin right off the face-off, and Malkin took a shot from the top of the right face-off circle, which had stopped before bouncing off Puustinen’s skate.
Sidney Crosby put home his 32nd goal of the season to give Pittsburgh their first lead of the night 3-2 with 6:39 remaining in the third. He scored a power-play goal on a tip-in from the slot after Bryan Rust took a pass from Grzelcyk and sent it to Crosby from the left circle. Recording his second point of the night, Rust took a backhanded pass from Crosby, who got the puck from Ville Koivunen, in the neutral zone and drove toward the empty New Jersey net to score his 29th goal of the season for the 4-2 final.
Bryan Rust on his new career high: “For me, it’s special. Obviously, our team’s success is first, and you want to win games, win championships, but a second to that is a personal success. So anytime you can hit new milestones and get a new career high, especially after 10 years, that kind of means you’re probably doing something right. That means a lot to me, but it’s only 29, and there’s obviously a lot more.”
Tristan Jarry on the start of the game and team/his performance after giving up two: “It was a tough start. I think when we give up chances like that to start, it’s just hard to prepare for. It’s hard to kind of climb back from, but I thought the guys did a great job. I thought we kind of settled down after that, and obviously, our special teams was really good tonight, so I think that helped and gave our team a bit of a boost there,” – “I think after those two goals, the second goal was unfortunate, just kind of goes off the guy skating to the net, but after that, I thought the team settled in really well. I think I did so myself. I think when we kind of settle in like that, play our game, and kind of possess the puck more, it makes it easier for me, and I think we play a better game, a full 60 when we do that.”
Cody Glass on the penalty he took and the game overall: “I thought we did a good job 5-on-5, and you know, penalties kill momentum. I took a stupid penalty. Even if I thought I was doing the right thing or maybe someone lifted my stick or whatever, it’s a dumb play. Luckily, it’s not playoffs because, you know, we could be down one nothing in a series now. So I’ll be smarter than that, be smarter with my stick, and I think that just killed us,” – “I think we just got a little bit too fancy. Like you saw in the first period, we were being direct, putting pucks on net, we were outshooting them, and getting chances. Then, in the second period, we started trying to make that extra pass. We were missing the net a lot, which doesn’t help. But yeah, it was kind of our own doing, and coming to playoff time, playing the Hurricanes, it’s going to be a tough challenge. We got to get ourselves ready. We have to treat these last three games like it’s playoffs and get ourselves in a good spot.”
Game Notes:
– Tristan Jarry made 26 saves for Pittsburgh, and Jake Allen made 20 for New Jersey.
– Bryan Rust recorded a goal and an assist, and Matt Grzelcyk gathered a pair of assists. …With his goal, Rust surpassed his previous career high of 28 goals set during the 2023-24 season. He also extended his point streak to five games (eight points; three goals, five assists).
– Ray Shero was named the First Star of the Game.
– Rickard Rakell skated in his 800th NHL career game, and among the 14 players from his 2011 draft class that have played 800 games, Rakell’s 235 goals entering this game are the fifth most through the player’s milestone game.
– Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin scored in the same game for the 128th time; the Penguins are 111-10-6 when both players score in the same match. …With his goal, Crosby scored his 99th career game-winning goal, moving past both Bobby Hull and Guy Lafleur (each with 98) for the 10th-most in NHL history.
– Dougie Hamilton, who has been out of the lineup due to a lower-body injury and has missed the past 16 games, has been skating on his own for the past two weeks. He remains on schedule to rejoin the Devils for the start of the playoffs. Earlier this week, head coach Sheldon Keefe said, “We’re hopeful that Dougie is going to be good to go; it looks like he is,” – “But we got to ramp him up.”
– In their past 15 games, the Penguins are 9-4-2. The Devils are 4-3-0 in their past seven.
– PIT: 33-35-12, NJ: 41-31-7
ITR 33: The Gr8 One – Inside The Rink
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