Pregame
Kris Letang gets back into the lineup for the Penguins.
The hosting Vancouver Canucks greet the Pens with this lineup.
First period
The Penguins strike first only to see it get called back on a Vancouver challenge. Egor Chinakhov sneaks a puck in from right in front but he was offside and a step ahead of the play at the blueline so it made for an easy reversal.
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Jack St. Ivany leaves the bench in the middle of the period, dropping Pittsburgh down to five defenders.
It becomes the Canucks turn to have a disallowed goal. Conor Garland blasts a slapshot from outside that gets by Stuart Skinner, though the ref immediately washes it out because Teddy Blueger backed all the way into the blue paint of the crease and contacted Skinner with his backside.
Matching no goals makes it a 0-0 score after one. Vancouver is up 9-8 on shots, Skinner made a few nice saves along the way.
Second period
Vancouver gets the first power play of the game when Anthony Mantha smacks a guy in the face. The Pens PK takes care of business, no small thanks to a bunch of saves from Skinner.
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The Pittsburgh second line comes through for a goal again, this time it counts. Chinakhov picks the puck off this time, Novak again with the setup to a streaking Evgeni Malkin to lift it home. 1-0 Pens.
Next up, the Ben Kindel show. The 18-year old gets his first goal in 19 games by redirecting a puck from in tight, to the delight of 180 family and friends in attendance.
Kindel turns that goal-drought into a goal-streak with another goal to extend the lead to 3-0. Should get a bonus point for absolutely shattering the camera within the net.
Big time period for the visitors to blow the game open with three goals.
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Third period
It takes almost six minutes for Vancouver to get their first shots of the third period, they make them count. Jake DeBrusk follows up a shot and is able to put the puck into the net. 3-1
Say what you will about the Canucks, they didn’t go away quietly. Filip Hronek takes a big slapshot that has enough energy on it to bounce around a few times and go off Teddy Blueger and into the net. 3-2 game with just 6:00 to go.
Goalie Kevin Lankinen is pulled with about 2 minutes left, it’s crunch time for the 6v5 magic that Vancouver looks for. They get a great look that Skinner stymies with a diving save that brings back memories of Marc-Andre Fleury in Detroit.
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The Canucks keep throwing everything they can at the net between bodies, sticks, pucks, yet they can’t crack Skinner again before the final buzzer goes off to save the Pens.
Some thoughts
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Novak’s play in the neutral zone has been great lately. Whether it’s skating the puck and gaining the zone or blocking breakout attempts he’s been everywhere. It’s been paying off in big ways like the setup for the Malkin goal, it’s also all over the place to be on the puck constantly.
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Two goals for Kindel! He’s still been playing well all over the ice without the puck despite the lack of goals lately, popping in two for the homecoming of the Vancouver native in his first game there was a special moment for him to create.
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Between the team’s rookie party and seeing his family in a luxury box, how expensive was the weekend for Kindel? The old joke about playing for free might have some level of truth to it, he’d probably take it for the two goals, including the GWG.
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The Bob Grove stat of the day: today was game 1,000 (including playoffs) of the Big 3 all in the lineup together.
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St. Ivany only took three shifts (playing 2:54) before leaving with what was announced as an upper body injury. That meant the Pens basically went the distance with only five defenders for the balance of the game tonight.
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They still found a way to ease Letang back into the lineup, though you wouldn’t tell it from his overall ice time (16:50 through two periods, overall for the game). Letang wasn’t used on the PK. He hasn’t been a huge PK guy this season (averaging 1:27 per game), but that still ranked fourth among Pittsburgh defenders for a somewhat regular shift or turn in the rotation.
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Another quality start in the books for Skinner, as has become his norm as of late. There were times he didn’t have a lot of action, though at the start of the game and the Canuck power play early in the second he had to be good, as was. Moneypuck had Vancouver with over 2 expected goals at the halfway point of the game. Thanks to Skinner it was 0 actual at that point. Could it have been another OT/SO loss and three-goal third period lead blown for the Pens? It was trending that way until Skinner’s late game heroics.
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Maybe when the Penguins come back East they will find some power plays back at home. Pittsburgh only had six total power plays over the four-game western swing, including zip, zero tonight.
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Can’t complain with the results though, four games on the trip end up as four wins. Big time results there.
The Penguins gotta be looking around seeing if the NHL has any more teams for them to play out in the northwest. Sadly, they do not, the team will return home and look to bottle up the momentum for their next game on Thursday against Buffalo.
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