It was a night for the Pettersson’s. Unfortunately, for the Penguins the Canucks Pettersson is better suited to get into a scoring battle. It was Elias who came out on top after scoring the game winning goal in overtime for a 4-3 victory over the Penguins.
Elias Pettersson finished with two goals and two assists factoring in on every Canucks goal. It was the fourth consecutive victory for Vancouver who are by far the best shooting team in the league at the moment with a team shooting percentage of 12.37 at 5v5. The next best team is Detroit at 10.82 and they are the only other double digit team.
For the Penguins it was a slow start which led to Alex Nedeljkovic getting yanked from the net after just one period of play and allowing three goals on only nine shots. Nedeljkovic is a huge reason why the Penguins are still fighting for a playoff spot and tonight was an off night. Tristan Jarry’s relief performance was very solid. Only allowing a single goal in the overtime period. He bought the Penguins time to dig out of their hole, which they did. I bet you can’t guess who dug them out of their hole…
Sidney Crosby at age 36 is having an absolutely amazing season in a career which has had many. He scored the second and third goal to salvage a point in the standings. His third goal came in dramatic fashion with only 28 seconds left in the game. Much to the crowd’s delight.
With this goal, Sidney Crosby passes Mike Bossy and takes sole possession of 22nd overall on the @NHL all-time goals list. pic.twitter.com/9pxpRx0KYl
— Pittsburgh Penguins (@penguins) January 12, 2024
The thing with Sid is you’re going to get beautiful goals that are aesthetically pleasing and you’re also going to get the grimy rough around the edges types of goals and nobody is able to produce both kinds in the volume Sid does.
Mike Bossy’s career was prematurely ended, Sid passing him on this list remains an impressive accomplishment.
While coming up short in overtime is always frustrating, battling back and earning an extra standings point has the chance to go a long way at the end of the year. The Islanders already have ten loser points and it is literally keeping them in the hunt. Penguins now have five. They need to keep avoiding zero point games and they will stay in the mix. They have a tough matchup on Saturday night when they visit the Hurricanes in another divisional matchup. A few weeks back the Penguins squeezed out a 2-1 shootout victory over the Hurricanes. The team has a few days to get their legs and make another solid run at them.
Thanks for reading!