PITTSBURGH (93.7 The Fan) – At least they got a point, but Pens goalie Alex Nedeljkovic didn’t want to hear that after an Islanders 5-4 win Tuesday night.
“We came back, responded well again,” Nedeljkovic said. “We played good the whole night. We deserved two points. We deserved to win in regulation. I s--- the bed and dropped the ball for us tonight.”
While Pens head coach Mike Sullivan said it wasn’t Nedeljkovic’s best game, allowing five goals in 33 shots, the team is also taking the mindset that they have to take a positive out of at least salvaging one point when trailing by two goals with eight minutes to play.
“We showed we had no quit in us regardless of how things went during the game,” said forward Lars Eller. “That’s going to be important going forward. The mentality and never stop fighting.”
“We will take the point, but it sucks it was against a divisional opponent,” said defenseman Marcus Pettersson. “We got to take that with us that we responded in a really good way and came back in the game.”
“A couple of the goals were fluky and our guys kept competing,” Sullivan said. “I thought there was a lot to like about our team game. I thought our guys had an inspired effort. We didn’t get the result, obviously that is disappointing.”
“You can’t always control if the puck goes in the net or not. All you can control is your effort, your energy, your intent, your compete level, your execution level. I thought for a lot of the night it was a pretty inspired night, by a lot of guys.”
Updated Standings
Metropolitan Division
1. Rangers (56 games) 77 points
2. Carolina (55 games) 71 points
3. Philadelphia (56 games) 65 points
4. New Jersey (55 games) 60 points
5. Islanders (55 games) 60 points
6. Washington (54 games) 58 points
7. Pens (53 games) 56 points
Swede-ness
The three hometowns nearly span the length of Sweden’s east coast as Erik Karlsson, Rickard Rakell and Pettersson combined for the first goal. It was the defenseman’s third goal of the season, all coming since January 11.
It wasn’t a Swede, but another Scandinavian who scored the Pens next goal, Eller’s slapper cut the Isles lead to 3-2 late in the second period. The Dane with his 10th goal of the season on assists from Chad Ruhwedel and Ryan Graves.
We’re just missing a Norwegian, as the third goal was by Finnish forward Valtteri Puustinen as he chopped in a rebound off a Kris Letang slapper.
The fourth goal had nothing to do with Europe, a Drew O’Connor shot heading for Pettersson deflected off Andres Lee as he was defending to tie the game at 4.
800
In his 972nd game, Karlsson is the ninth fastest defenseman in NHL history to reach 800 points. Karlsson is in 18th place on the NHL’s all-time points list for defensemen, 11 points from former Pen Sergei Gonchar.
He has points now in 15 of his last 18 games.
Brock’s boys
Brock Nelson scored his 20th career goal against the Pens. That is three more than he has against any other team. The 36 points against the Pens are six more than any other opponent.
Up Next
Pens home to the Montreal Canadiens Thursday at 7p.