93.7 The Fan (PITTSBURGH) - Sidney Crosby nets the game winner against the Blue Jackets to complete the Penguins come back in a 5-4 overtime win Sunday afternoon.
Not even two minutes into the game, Pittsbugh took a 1-0 lead as Ville Koivunen found the back of the net on a redirect. Columbus responded about seven minutes later with two goals in 27 seconds. Denton Mateychuk slapped the puck towards the net and it was tipped in by Dmitri Voronkov to tie the game. Just 27 seconds later, Adam Fantilli had a breakaway chance denied by Arturs Silovs, but Mason Marchment was right there for the rebound and he put it in for the lead.
With 1:22 to go in the first period, Columbus added onto the lead. Mateychuk had his shot blocked but it found Zach Werenski who fed the pass to the side of the net for Kirill Marchenko to extend the lead 3-1 Blue Jackets after the first period.
"In the start of the first I thought were playing really well. We score a goal, then we got away from it in the back half of the first period. I thought we just didn't do a good enough job there to stop the momentum over on their side," said Dan Muse after the game.
47 seconds into the second period, Werenski made it 4-1 Blue Jackets as he wristed one past Silovs in front of the blue line. Columbus created a ton of traffic for Silovs in front of the net on the goal.
With 3:09 left in the period, Columbus turned the puck over with a bad pass and Connor Dewar found Noel Acciari for the goal and cutt the Blue Jackets lead to 4-2. Pittsburgh outhsot Columbus 21-6 in the period.
"After the scored that goal early I thought 20 something shots in the 2nd period, we were happy with the direction our game was going in. That's a huge goal at the end of the 2nd, I feel like that totally changed the feel of the game," said Muse.
In the third period, Tommy Novak blasted a one-timer fed from Ben Kindel to cut the game to 4-3 Columbus with 16:32 to go. Columbus had a chance to go back up by two but Silovs denied Mathieu Olivier right in front of the net with just over 5 minutes in the game.
In the final 30 seconds of regulation, the Penguins had the puck in the Columbus zone with an extra attacker, Karlsson fed a pass to Sidney Crosby, who passed it to Anthony Mantha to the side of the net and he found Rickard Rakell right in front of the net for the game tying goal with 14 seconds left.
"It felt great, we were pushing throughout the whole period there. We felt like were close so many times but their goalie played really well for them and didn't make it easy for us," said Rakell after the win. "Everybody on our team did such a good job for us. That goal at the end of the second period gave us hope coming into the third. I think that's what changed the game a little bit for us."
In overtime, Columbus was in the middle of a line change and former Blue Jacket Yegor Chinakhov took advantage of it, made a pass to Erik Karlsson, who then found Crosby entering the zone. Crosby made a deke and scored five-hole for the winner.
"It was a great pass. Great poise, to have that kind of poise at that point of the game at the blue line is not easy. He put it right on my stick, so it was a big play from him. Obviously a lot of big plays that led to us coming back into it," said Crosby.
With the goal, Crosby became the first player in NHL history to record 50 career overtime points (25 goals, 25 assists).
That's five straight wins for the Penguins. They will look for number six when they host New Jersey Thursday night.