The Penguins and Sabres fought it out all the way to overtime, but it was Pittsburgh who left with the two points to complete a perfect homestand. The Penguins were the better team for the majority of the evening and the Sabres were opportunistic in matching goals to get to overtime. This followed the narrative of both teams being the polar opposite of one another. The Penguins had all the good underlying numbers, but not enough finishing as their three goals on 48 shots while Buffalo had two on 21 shots.
Evan Rodrigues scored on his former team and is solidifying himself on the top line even when Bryan Rust returns to play. He might be solidifying his role as Bryan Rust’s 3.5M replacement, something I’ll look into with more detail in the future. He continues to try to make good plays instead of boring safe plays. He had his curl and drag going on a few occasions. His goal was just a straight up bullet of a snap shot
Last game, Evan Rodrigues tallied one goal and two assists. He also tied his career-high in goals (9), set a new career-high in power-play goals (3), and reached the 20-point plateau for the third time in his career.
— Pittsburgh Penguins (@penguins) December 18, 2021
...And now he has yet another power-play goal. pic.twitter.com/HJ0ZTPgKqP
His career year continues to roll on.
Malcolm Subban made 45 saves for a career high, but he needed at least 46. After Jeff Carter took a penalty late in the third period his teammates picked him up and killed it off. He returned the favor in kind with an amazing play involving Kris Letang
THE BIGGEST OF GOALS FROM THE BIGGEST OF JEFFS! pic.twitter.com/okCl6olkgO
— Pittsburgh Penguins (@penguins) December 18, 2021
Pretty good, pretty pretty pretty good
Shifting gears completely there was an Alexander Ovechkin stat I saw today and it was a very impressive stat.
Only one player in NHL history age 36 or older has recorded more points than Alex Ovechkin (47) through their first 30 games played of a season: Pittsburgh’s Mario Lemieux (55) in 2002-03.#NHLStats
— Tom Gulitti (@TomGulittiNHL) December 18, 2021
Ovechkin’s season has been marvelous. I think when you see these numbers at his age it really puts into perspective how insane Mario Lemieux’s comeback era was and dare I say underappreciated. The 2002-03 season wasn’t even the crown jewel of Mario’s comeback era. Yet he still had 91 points in only 67 games. His points per game of 1.36, after some brief research, has only been matched by Sidney Crosby, Alexander Ovechkin, Connor McDavid, Leon Draisaitl, Evgeni Malkin, Nikita Kucherov, Artemi Panarin, and Patrick Kane since then. The crown jewel of the comeback was when Mario reached his 1.77 points per game when he literally got off the couch after 3.5 years of retirement and went bonkers for 76 points in 43 games, a 1.77 points per game. This of course all during the worst scoring era in the history of hockey.
Only Connor McDavid has gone over that number with his 1.88 points per game last season. McDavid of course being 24 years old and only playing against the Canadian teams in a more scoring friendly environment. This isn’t a knock on the current best player in the world. It is a compliment to Super Mario by putting both in perspective.
To even be mentioned alongside Lemieux for late career scoring rates is quite the feather in Alexander Ovechkin’s cap.
Thanks for reading!