PITTSBURGH (93.7 The Fan) – You could understand the Penguins fan base if, in a game they once led 2-0, they were nervous about heading into a shootout. The Pens were 1-10 in shootouts, by far the most losses in the NHL. Yet Saturday with Sidney Crosby and Rickard Rakell scoring, the Pens won it 5-4 to take a precious two points against Winnipeg.
Goalie Arturs Silovs stopped both shots (Jonathan Toews and Gustav Nyquist) for his first shootout win with the Pens in something that has been a struggle specifically for him.
“It looked like everyone felt pretty confident in the shootout,” Silovs said. “I think we executed on both ends and I think it was a confident win in a shootout.”
“Even (Friday), he was awesome in practice,” said Pens head coach Dan Muse. “He was stopping pucks at a pretty high rate. You could see the work that he’s put in, the improvement that he’s had. In the end, that’s what you want to see. There are going to be things that come up, whether it’s individuals or the team, that we got to get better at.
The guys have been working at it and sticking with it.”
“Great to see everybody involved be able to factor in and make an impact and help us get that other point.”
“It feels awesome, going into a shootout has been in everyone’s head that it hasn’t gone great,” Rakell said. “We worked on shootouts in practice and said we are going to turn the page and go out with confidence, I think that’s what we did.”
Scoring
Pens took a 2-0 lead within the first 2:06 of the game against USA Olympic hero, Winnipeg goalie Connor Hellebuyck, on an opening goal from Egor Chinakhov, his 12th as a Penguin in 31 games and then Rickard Rakell on a great feed from Bryan Rust, who was playing in his 700th career game. After Winnipeg tied it in the second, Erik Karlsson buried a shot on a pass from Parker Wotherspoon. Jets would take the lead and Karlsson again off a drop pass from Rust tied the game at 15:22 in the third.
Pens blew an overtime power play, but Sidney Crosby and Rickard Rakell both scored in the shootout for the win.
0-8 goalie interference
Dan Muse is still looking for his first challenge win for goaltender interference, now 0-8. The challenge Saturday came early as Karlsson was hit hard in front of the net by the Jets Morgan Barron and as an off-balanced Karlsson knocked goalie Arturs Silovs out of the blue paint, the puck bounced in the net to give Winnipeg its first goal.
Muse said he just had a conversation with GM Kyle Dubas following recent NHL general manager meetings about this subject. The Pens head coach said he went by the book. Here is the book.
In the NHL rulebook, Rule 69.1 states
‘If a defending player has been pushed, shoved, or fouled by an attacking player so as to cause the defending player to come into contact with his own goalkeeper, such contact shall be deemed contact initiated by the attacking player for purposes of this rule, and if necessary a penalty assessed to the attacking player and if a goal is scored it would be disallowed’.
Refs and Toronto saw it as a good goal and no interference.
“That’s the referees, I don’t know what they are looking for,” Silovs said. “What is goalie interference? What isn’t goalie interference? Sure it’s frustrating, you give them an easy goal for no reason, but we battled through and we managed to win the game.”
Carolina again
After losing a couple to the Hurricanes on this last road trip, including a couple of days ago in overtime, Carolina is at PPG Paints Arena on Sunday at 3p.
“There are a good team, they are a top team in the league,” Karlsson said. “This time of year, those types of games are the most fun. We expect ourselves to be at our best and looking for a good game.”