The goal barrage we were expecting with the Toronto and Pittsburgh matchup came to fruition last night with Connor McDavid and the Edmonton Oilers. Both Sidney Crosby and Connor McDavid did the things that make them special players in this contest. Each finished with two points, but it was Sidney Crosby that had the game winner in overtime when he brutalized Ryan Strome. Here is a look at all the action last night
Classic #SidDownLow tip. It is great to see Kris Letang firing pucks to the net area.
Mike Sullivan has gotten great results from his top line against two megastars of the NHL
Specifically: In 20 minutes of even-strength head-to-head ice-time against McDavid and Matthews the past two games Crosby cruised along with a 65% Corsi.
— Adam Gretz (@AGretz) October 24, 2018
It was great for Sidney Crosby to score his first goals of the season. It was also great to see that Patric Hornqvist has a pulse. He also scored his first two goals of the season and both of them came at even-strength which is even better. Hornqvist isn’t like Sidney Crosby where his other attributes can make up for an extended offensive drought. He scored his goals where he always does. Right in front of the net.
Jamie Oleksiak scored twice in the game and it has been a rarity to see positive contributions from the non Letang-Dumoulin pairing this year. His first goal was uncharacteristic in that he was right near the crease. Phil Kessel and Evgeni Malkin doing the zone entry thing preceded Oleksiak’s first goal. Those two create so much where other players either cannot or are not willing to.
Oleksiak’s second goal was your standard Oleksiak bomb, on a bouncing puck no less.
Not everything was great. The Penguins did give up five goals. Alex Chiasson scored twice. He had nine goals all of last year. Out of those five goals I bet you can’t guess which defenseman was on the ice for all five. Sure you can. You are slowly coming to the acceptance stage that this Jack Johnson contract sucks.
I will say it is easy to pick on Jack Johnson after a game like this. He was obviously terrible. The lion’s share of NHL players are horrid at some point in their career in a single game. Jack Johnson is also going to have good games. This is true even for bad players, I promise. Even Craig Adams scored a goal here and there. Tanner Glass, too! It’s going to be a long year covering a team with Jack Johnson on it because some people can’t understand that bad players sometimes do good things.
So for those this applies to can we please stop celebrating every outlet pass this guy makes as if it justifies his inability to drive play or create offense? The Pittsburgh Penguins can make good players from bad situations into functional and productive players. They don’t have Harry Potter magic that can take bad players and turn them into good players. It didn’t work with Matt Hunwick and it isn’t going to work with Jack Johnson.
Daniel Sprong was laid out by the aforementioned Alex Chiasson and it was directly tied to a goal against. These are the type of visceral events that the coach isn’t going to forget. A bad situation just got worse for the young Dutchman. I couldn’t find a highlight that showed the neutral zone sequence, but it is definitely odd to have your right winger in the left corner of your defensive zone. Nothing about that setup is ideal.
What a weird feeling, we don’t have to wait four days for the Penguins to play. They will be back in action Thursday night against Calgary.
Thanks for reading!