PITTSBURGH (93.7 The Fan) – How about the Pens showing off some youth in a 4-1 win over the Hurricanes. The Pens played 11 players under 30. It was only one fewer than the playoff-bound Canes.
The Pens even had a line consisting of a 23-year-old, a 23-year-old and a 25-year-old and the old man on the line, Jesse Puljujarvi scored a goal. Also scoring was 25-year-old Drew O’Connor as the Pens made you wonder where this type of game has been.
“I think they brought some energy, some really good positivity and some excitement,” said 28-year-old goalie Alex Nedeljkovic, who stopped 39 shots. “They want to play. They want to do well. When you are young like that and haven’t played a lot of games in this league you want to succeed and show the guys around you that you can do it. They are always one of the hardest working guys when they get on the ice.”
“I thought they brought us a lot of juice,” said Pens head coach Mike Sullivan. “They’re enthusiasm is contagious in the third in particular. I thought they had a couple of strong momentum shifts. Gruden ends up in the fight. They brought a ton of energy.”
Bryan Rust got the game-winner late in the second period burying a slapper off a Sidney Crosby faceoff win. O’Connor and Crosby had empty net goals to put it away.
“I thought we competed hard,” Sullivan said. “They are a hard team to play against. They have a lot of speed.
Their defense is as mobile as it gets and they play a style of play where they are ultra-aggressive. They might be the most aggressive team in the league.”
“Never felt like we got caught running around for three, four, five minutes at a time,” Nedeljkovic said. “It was one or two shifts maybe and that was it. Then we found a way to get the puck back. We did that a little more consistently.”
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“Feels good, it’s a good team we beat,” O’Connor said. “It shows what we can be when we put a full 60 minutes together.”
1st Star
Crosby is making an early run for one of the three stars of the week, the Pens captain with a goal and two assists on Tuesday after a goal and three assists on Sunday.
The 36-year-old is now only four points away from Ray Bourque and 11th place on the NHL’s all-time points list and only 15 points from the Top 10 and Phil Esposito.
Crosby is nine assists from one-thousand in his career. Only 13 players have reached that mark in NHL history.