Tomas Plekanec scored in the ninth round of the shootout to vault the Canadiens over the Penguins 3-2, Tuesday night.
In the end, the Penguins failed to take two points in the game, although their bounce-back effort after a lackluster game in New Jersey may have been the bigger story.
Montreal opened the scoring 11:21 into the second period with a goal from Matt Leblanc. Chris Campoli’s stretch pass deflected off of Andrei Kostitsyn and went right to Leblanc who fired a wrist shot past Marc-Andre Fleury.
With the Canadiens on a power play to start the third period, Joe Vitale took a wide angle on the penalty kill and threw the puck towards the goaltender, Price, where it deflected off of the skate of Pascal Dupuis. The play went to review but was confirmed as a good goal and the Penguins were tied at 1 a piece.
Marc-Andre Fleury, who was pulled in the middle of the second period on Sunday, had a solid game, stopping 28 of 30 shots. Although, he may be remembered best in this game for the goal he allowed in the third period.
At the 3 minute mark in the third period, Lars Eller skated down the near boards and shot the puck towards Fleury who started to go behind the net before realizing the puck was not dumped along the boards. The puck caromed off the far post, off of Fleury’s backside and in the net to give the Canadiens a 2-1 lead.
With chants of “FLEURY” still raining down at the Bell Centre, James Neal took a deflected pass from Evgeni Malkin and scored his career high 28th goal of the season. Malkin’s assist also extended his point lead over Claude Giroux to two as he now has 62 points on the season.
With the final minutes ticking down in the period, James Neal took a high sticking penalty. The Penguins penalty was able to hold on as they gave Montreal little chance to set up their power play.
Playing in their third overtime game in four meetings, and second shootout, both teams traded scoring chances but neither could finish the game in the five minute extra frame.
The overtime period ended on high emotions as Evgeni Malkin’s frustration with P.K. Subban had boiled over as the horn sounded. Subban appeared to hit Malkin high on back to back plays, frustrating the young Russian. As Malkin skated for Subban, Mathieu Darche pinned him against the boards. Letang swooped in and tackled Subban, holding him down on the ice for nearly a minute before both teams skated back to their respective benches.
In the shootout, Rene Bourque skated quickly down the middle of the ice and scored against Marc-Andre Fleury. Malkin’s spin-o-rama kept tied the shootout 1-1 after two frames, where it would stay until the fifth frame. Lars Eller scored and, again, Montreal took the lead in the shootout. With Pittsburgh in dyer need of a goal, Chris Kunitz’s nifty move tied the game again. Despite being 7-2 in shootouts heading into this game, the Penguins were unable to recover after Tomas Plekanec’s wrist shot went over the left shoulder of Fleury. Jason Williams, freshly called up from Wilkes-Barre, tried to go five-hole on Carey Price but was denied.
- The Penguins finish their season series with the Canadiens to a record of 3-0-1.
- With the overtime loss and New Jersey’s win against New York, Pittsburgh drops to 4th in the Atlantic Division and 6th in the Eastern Conference.
- Coach Dan Bylsma believes Jordan Staal and Simone Despres are 5-10 days away from returning to action while Sidney Crosby still has no timetable.
- The Penguins are off until Saturday when they face the Winnipeg Jets at Consol Energy Center.
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