PITTSBURGH (93.7 The Fan) – Penguins roll Lightning 5-1 in a dominant performance Thursday night.
Pittsburgh opened up the first period attacking the net outshooting the Lightning 5-0 in the first three minutes. Then on a rush Evgeni Malkin passed to Kasperi Kapinen, his shot went off Andrei Vasilevsky and got rebounded into the net by Danton Heinen to make it 1-0 Penguins with 16:14 in the first period.
After a lightning penalty, the Penguins kept the attack going as the puck could not be cleared by the Lightning and after multiple shots that were denied, great passing from Malkin to Jake Guentzel under the net drew the defense to him and made Vasilevsky get low, Guentzel passed to Sidney Crosby for a wrist shot to make it 2-0 Penguins with 13:33 to play in the first.
Tampa Bay finally woke up late in the period getting multiple opportunities but Tristan Jarry stood strong holding them out of the net in the first period. The Penguins outshot the Lightning 16-5 in the period.
With just 6 seconds in the period Kris Letang and Brayden Point dropped the gloves as Letang took Point down after they were jarring and hitting each other with their sticks in front of the net.
"He's an emotional guy, he's as invested as anybody out there and he wants to win," said Mike Sullivan. "Obviously we don't want Kris fighting every night, he's way more important to us on the ice. When he plays the game as hard as he does and he's as emotionally invested as he is, sometimes that stuff happens.
The second period the Lightning got on the scoreboard after a Letang pass that was intercepted by Pierre-Edouard Bellemare who then passed it to Pat Maroon and he gave it back to Bellemare who shot one past Jarry cutting the deficit in half. But Pittsburgh would respond after Evgeni Malkin found Brock McGinn wide open for a break away goal past Vasilevsky to give the Pens a two goal lead again.
Near the end of the period just like in the first period a fight broke out but this one was bigger than the first one between Letang and Point. With less than a minute in the period, a shot from the blue line saved by Jarry resulted in an all out scrum. After the fight head coach John Cooper kept running his mouth at the official for two of his players being sent to the box and he was ejected from the game. The Penguins took a 5 on 3 power play into the third period.
Tensions were high in this game, the Penguins were getting to the Lightning and Tampa wasn’t having it. After a stoppage of play about 5 minutes into the third period, Anthony Cirelli and Dominic Simon were both given a misconduct
After the stoppage, Malkin laid out Bellemare and then got a pass from Heinen that led to a breakaway snipe from Geno making it 4-1 Penguins, putting them in full command.
Tampa Bay pulled the goalie with over 6 minutes to go in the game and Letang saucer passed up in the air to a wide open Guentzel just in front of the blue line putting in an empty netter making it 5-1 Penguins.
Sullivan felt this was one of the most complete games they played this year.
"It was one of our more complete efforts all year long," said Sullivan. "I thought throughout out lineup we had contributions from everybody on both sides of the puck. For me the most encouraging part was our third period we continued to play the game on our toes. We created a lot of offense through our defense."
Jarry Dominates Lightning
The Penguins outshot the Lightning 40 to 21 and 20 of the 21 shots on net were stopped by Jarry. Jarry made some great plays robbing a couple of open shots, diving with his stick to knock the puck away and put his team in a position to win the game.
Tensions High
The Penguins got under the Lightning’s skin tonight. It was clear when multiple fights broke out after stoppages of play that the Lightning were frustrated and that the Penguins were in full control of the game. Letang and Point weren’t two guys that people thought would throw down. A stoppage of play after a Jarry save led to a full out scrum and sent two Lightning players to the penalty box and resulted in their head coach getting ejected.
"When you look at the core guys we have here and our leadership, these guys have been through that a lot." said Sullivan in regards to the scrums from the Lightning. "When you play a team like Tampa, that's one of the top teams in the league everybody's invested. There was a lot of emotion on both sides."
Up Next
It’s a quick turnaround as the Penguins travel to Carolina to take on the 1st place Hurricanes at 7:00 tomorrow night. Carolina was shut out 4-0 by the Washington Capitals Thursday.