Penguins/Panthers Recap: Rakell’s last minute goal gets the Pens a point

The Pens salvage a point with Rickard Rakell’s late goal, but then fall in a shootout to the Florida Panthers

Pregame

Some interesting changes for the Penguins, following their NYE loss in Detroit. Kevin Hayes (healthy scratch for the last nine games) is back in the lineup in Anthony Beauvillier’s expense. Owen Pickering (out the last four games with a concussion) is able to return, kicking Ryan Shea up to the press box. Tristan Jarry is the starter in goal.

First period

The Panthers, fresh off playing last night, are the sharper team out the gates than the Penguins, taking an early 8-3 edge in shots. Jarry gets an atta boy for the rare occurrence of stopping all the early ones.

Sam Reinhart takes the first penalty of the game when Ryan Graves...lifts Reinhart’s stick into his own face. Caught himself right in the eye, clearly wasn’t intentional but a mishap from players jostling sticks for positioning.

The early power play is rotten but they get some looks on the back-half of the double minor.

Pittsburgh does OK, but can’t beat Spencer Knight. The Panthers are mostly quiet in the second half of the first period, game is scoreless after 20 with a 12-10 PIT edge on the board for shots.

Second period

Florida strikes on the first shift of the second period. Gustav Forsling shoots from distance, there’s some traffic in front of the net and the puck finds its way in. 1-0.

Disaster almost strikes when Jarry leaves the crease to play the puck and it gets caught up in his feet. Graves is there to save the day and break up the pass for what would have been an easy goal.

The Panthers take another high-sticking penalty, this time it’s A.J. Greer and of the two minute variety. Nothing good comes of it.

Greer then takes ANOTHER high-sticking penalty, this one a double-minor. What’s up with all these high sticks? This time Sidney Crosby is done messing around, wins the faceoff, gets a great pass from Bryan Rust and fires in a power play goal only five seconds into the first power play to tie the game at 1-1.

The Pens then get two more PP minutes. This one isn’t as pretty, Michael Bunting is at the blueline for some reason and fumbles away a bouncing puck to give up a 2-on-1. Strong work from Jarry keeps Florida off the board again.

Since penalties are 5-0, you can probably guess what happens next. If it was that a Penguin (Rickard Rakell) got rung up for a ticky tack call, you’re correct! A scrum happens after the whistle and Rust, Michael Bunting + Evan Rodrigues and Matthew Tkachuk all get matching minors for their truculence, resulting in a 5v4 FLA power play.

Tkachuk must have continued to bark at the refs, he’s asked to leave for the locker-room with a 10 minute misconduct. Florida’s power play doesn’t look like much.

The Panthers get another power play right before the period ends, Marcus Pettersson is off for tripping.

Much more exciting second period compared to the first, and not just because of the goal each team scored. The temperature got raised quite a bit with some chippy play and scrums after the whistle. 1-1 game with 20 minutes to go.

Third period

The Penguins kill off the penalty.

A few minutes in a bizarre circumstance happens. The refs stop the play and announce a too many men penalty on the Penguins. Mike Sullivan loses his mind and climbs over the bench to the very front, an unusual move in hockey in everywhere but Russia for the coaches to get that far front to address the refs. They confer and then make the rare move to take it back an un-call the penalty.

But the Pens take another one soon after that Sullivan can’t argue away, P.O. Joseph heads off for cross-checking. Tkachuk is finally out of the penalty box for this one and the puck hits off him and into the net to put Florida ahead 2-1 with 11:12 to go.

Crosby roars back immediately after the goal, bulling through Aaron Ekblad who has to hook him to hold him up. The Pens are off to their sixth power play of the night. No dice.

Evgeni Malkin gets set up and has a wide open net but he hits the post. He hasn’t missed too many of those looks over the years. Similarly, Rakell puts a nice tip that elevates a puck from right in front but Knight is square to the shot and is able to stop it.

The door gets opened one more time for a power play with 2:01 remaining. Sam Bennett gets whistled for roughing when he makes a leaping hit into the face of Drew O’Connor. Bet he was thinking the refs wouldn’t call him for an o-zone penalty with two to go, he was wrong.

The Pens pull Jarry with 1:15 to go to make it a 6v4 edge. This time Rakell doesn’t miss, from a tight bumper spot he completes a tic-tac-toe play from Malkin to Bunting to the back of the net. 2-2 with 39.9 seconds to play.

Overtime

Sasha Barkov gets kicked out of the opening faceoff but the Panthers win it anyways to get the all-important puck possession to start the 3v3 action.

Both teams take some chances but neither can score within the five minutes. Florida comes closer, Jarry stones Bennett and another time the Panthers hit the post. But a shootout will be required to determine the winner.

Shootout

Barkov is up first, he comes in with speed and tries to get Jarry leaning right before shooting left but the Penguin goalie sticks with it.

Rakell goes for the Pens. He skates wide and cuts to the middle, dekeing to his backhand but Knight isn’t fooled and stops him.

—

Reinhart opens Round 2, comes in with speed and buries a quick shot to the top corner. 1-0 in SO.

Crosby looks for the answer, he goes wide to the left, comes into the middle and tries to go over the pad but under the blocker but Knight gets a blocker on it anyways and stops the shot.

—

Anton Lundell is up for Florida, he does a similar move to Crosby but is on a sharper angle and his shot does go over the pad, under the blocker and into the net. 2-0 FLA wins the shootout and the game.

Some thoughts

• Hayes didn’t play a lot at 9:39 of icetime, but recorded a season-high 5 shots (and 7 shot attempts) was one way to stand out and make an impact. The veteran certainly making his case to not go back to healthy scratch territory next game.
• He might not have to worry about that, Phillip Tomasino went into the boards very hard in the third period and needed help from the trainer to get off the ice. His leg slammed and bent in a way legs shouldn’t be stretched, we’ll wait to see what comes of it but certainly looks like it could result in missing time.
• Per Bob Grove, Tkachuk had 12 points in his prior six games against the Pens. Him taking himself out of the game for 10+ minutes with a game misconduct was A-OK by Pittsburgh. Unfortunately Tkachuk was freed just in time to score the go-ahead goal in the third period, because of course he was.
• Pickering and Joseph on their off-hands isn’t a pretty sight. With Pettersson in the penalty box to start the third period, Joseph and Erik Karlsson were first choice PKers. The defense is being held together with duct tape right now.
• Other lineup configurations that give the heebie jeebies: after the Tomasino injury Malkin’s power play group had Karlsson and then Cody Glass (one goal this season), Drew O’Connor (scored in one game in his last 34) and Hayes (hasn’t played in forever). Surprise, surprise, they didn’t score or get much going.
• Jarry was OK at keeping the puck out of the net tonight but didn’t look comfortable while doing so. He was fighting the puck, spinning around at times, uneasy going out of the net to play the puck. Results are all that matters but it didn’t look that pretty along the way.
• The power play going 2/7 salvaged a point with the late goal. The opportunities were there, and Florida was playing on the second night of a b-2-b. The chance to jump on them and really put a stamp on the game was there, and the Pens let it slip away until Rakell’s last minute goal made it happen.
• One point against the defending Cup champions in their barn with a depleted lineup? Yeah, you probably gotta take that somewhat satisfactorily and move onto the next one.

The road trip continues with a game on Sunday against Carolina.