PITTSBURGH (93.7 The Fan) - Tampa Bay scored three goals in the second period including a shorthanded one to beat the Pens 6-2. The Pens remain 3 points ahead of the Islanders for 2nd place in the Metro Division.
Tampa Bay opened the scoring a little more than 5 minutes into the game. Gage Concalves shot a snap shot at Stuart Skinner, Anthony Cirelli got the rebound and fired in a wrister to make it 1-0 Tampa Bay. Less than 2 minutes later, Sam Girard fed a pass to Rickard Rakell to the side of the net, Rakell kicked the puck with his left skate to his stick and scored to tie the game 1-1. It's Rakell's 7th goal in his last 6 games.
Egor Chinakov broke past the Lightning defense and scored on a backhander to give the Pens a 2-1 lead with 3:50 to play in the period.
3 unanswered by the Lightning in the Second Period sunk the Pens
11 seconds into the second period, with the Pens on the power play, Cirelli scored his second of the game. He stole a pass off the boards and broke loose for a breakaway backhander shorthanded goal, to tie the game 2-2.
"I think most teams in the League now, guys on the ice, where they get a look for it they're gonna go. It's our recognition it hasn't been good lately," said Dan Muse on the Pens struggles giving up short handed goals.
"You can't give those up," said Sidney Crosby. "Gotta look at it and find ways to make sure that we keep it out of our net on the power play."
Tampa Bay kept the pressure on in the Pens zone, Brayden Point got a rebound off Skinner and Sam Girard got into the crease and stopped the rebound attempt by Point to keep the game tied. Girard had six blocks in the game.
Point got another opportunity and capitalized on it with 5:52 in the period. Jake Guentzel shot one off Skinner, got the rebound behind the net and sent it to Point in front of the net. He saucer shot it over Skinner into the net to give the Lightning a 3-2 lead. Nikita Kucherov got the assist on the goal, it's his 4th straight season with 80+ assists. He sits behind Wayne Gretzky with 13 straight seasons.
Zemgus Girgensons added one more for Tampa, his 100th career goal and the Lightning took a 4-2 lead into the 2nd intermission.
"He got a pass out, I followed that play, normally when a play like that happens you don't expect too much time and space but he was able to get himself into really good position on us which is hard to especially against the guys we got. He went all the way back and threw it into an empty net," said Skinner after the game.
Just 5 shots in the third period for the Pens
Kuvherov added a goal with 6:10 in the third period extedning the lead 5-2. Pittsburgh pulled Skinner and Cirelli scored an empty netter for a hat trick. Chinakhov scored his second of the night, this time on the power play, with 1.5 left on the clock to end the game. Chinakhov with his 20th of the season and tallied his 6th goal in his last 8 games.
The Pens were held to just 5 shots on net in the third period. Both teams had 19 shots on net headed into the third. Tampa Bay outshot the Pens 33-24 in the game.
"They're right on top of you, they do a really great job with it and they make it difficult," said Muse. "It's not a surprise because we've seen it before, it's prety clear what their plan is. I didn't think we did the things we needed to do to get out of it, to spend more time in the offensive zone just in general."
"They're really good in the neutral zone, they're good at coming out of their end, gotta make sure you work as a unit to either win pucks back or create turnovers. I just thought overall they were better tonight. That's hockey sometimes, we gotta respond this weekend," said Crosby.
"They did such a great job creating time and space, we weren't able to necessarily get that back. I think even for our offense we got a few chance but overall they were all over us tonight. They didn't give us much room, they put themselves in a spot with very little error to make, that makes it really hard to get offense, makes it really hard especially when you're in the D-zone" said Skinner.
Standings in Metro (top 3 get in)
- Carolina-102 points, 7 games left (Clinched playoff spot)
- Pens-92 points, 6 games left
- Islanders-89 points, 6 games left
- Blue Jackets-88 points, 6 games left
- Flyers-86 points, 7 games left
Tampa Bay scored three goals in the second period including a shorthanded one.
