PITTSBURGH (93.7 the Fan - Turns out it was only one big shake-up – at least one intentional shake-up - when Mike Sullivan tweaked the line-up for the home opener after 2 straight losses.
Casey DeSmith started in goal after he had relieved a struggling Tristan Jarry while Jusso Riikola replaced Mike Matheson but we didn’t find out until after the game that poor performance wasn’t the reason.
“Mike Matheson was not a healthy scratch,” according to Sullivan who revealed that Matheson suffered an upper body injury Friday in Philadelphia and will be out “longer term.”
Then Sunday’s pairing were short-lived when John Marino and Marcus Pettersson didn’t exactly distinguish themselves on the first two Washington goals. “Johnny and I didn’t get off to the best of starts,” Pettersson frankly assessed.
Pettersson, though, redeemed himself when he tied the game midway through the second period, jumping off the bench, taking a nice feed from Jason Zucker and blistering a shot past Ilya Samsonov from between the circles.
Evan Rodrigues scored 19 seconds into the game on a deflection from Brian Dumoulin. Colton Sceviour scored when the Pens took advantage of an egregious turnover by Samsonov two minutes into the second period. He cleared the puck into the corner and Teddy Blueger zipped a past to a wide-open Sceviour who lifted it (apparently off the camera) under the crossbar to tie it, 2-2. He also had to wait out the world’s longest video review.
DeSmith was not good on the first Washington goal but he was really good in the third period and in overtime, then saved his best work for the shootout when he stoned shootout specialist TJ Oshie, Nick Backstrom, Ilya Kuznetsov and Alex Ovechkin. Since Sullivan said Jarry is going to take some time to collect himself and work with goalie coach Mike Buckley, DeSmith may start again Tuesday
Evgeni Malkin needs to be better. Through two periods, Malkin led all Pittsburgh forwards in ice time with 14:11 yet had 0 shots on goal, 0 shots blocked, 0 shots missed … in other words 0 shots. Geno did come alive a bit in the third and overtime but broke in alone twice in OT and was stopped then also failed to score in the shootout.
Still work to do but, for then Pens, 1-2 sure beats 0-3