The Penguins got to leave New Jersey with a split after a really bad game on Thursday night. Today they defeated the Devils by a score of 3-1. Sidney Crosby carried the team on his back in what will be one of the weaker lineups the Penguins put out there this year.
During warmups Brandon Tanev left the ice and was scratched from the game. This was quite a surprise and left the Penguins with even fewer capable players than they were set to have today.
Coach Sullivan on Tanev: "Tans is out right now with an upper-body injury. He is being evaluated right now. He will continue to be evaluated when we get back to Pittsburgh."
— Pittsburgh Penguins (@penguins) March 20, 2021
It ended up being OK because Sid was wearing a cape today. He did it all.
Sidney Crosby made multiple excellent plays to keep sequences alive in this game. Two of them led directly to goals for the Penguins. The first one came in the second period when Bryan Rust scored one of the nicer looking goals of his career. Rust’s finish on the play was great, but the effort by Crosby to keep the play alive in the corner was really good. Crosby dove, but his dive was too early and too short. He stayed with the play and while prone continued to try and reach for the puck and caused a disruption which led to a turnover. After he got up he got into a crosschecking match with Subban which kept the Devils defender in the corner instead of helping with the net front. This paved the lane for Rust to do his thing.
This isn’t the best angle of the Crosby diving play, but the only one I could track down.
subban and crosby r getting into it in the corner on the penguins pp and rust takes the vacated lane right to the net and scores pic.twitter.com/hb5qpuEipI
— dylan (@dylanfremlin) March 20, 2021
Sid wasn’t done with the hustle plays. He was directly responsible for keeping the puck in and firing it towards the net where Guentzel used his eye-hand coordination to do the rest.
Only Sidney Crosby could make a hustle play to keep the puck in the zone a highlight reel play pic.twitter.com/fkFg0jqPQc
— Dad Chad (@madchad412) March 20, 2021
This was a good game for the Penguins even if it was rough to watch for most of the game. This is what they had to do. Try and play low event with the lesser skilled players and hope the top line can save the day. Sidney Crosby and the top line did their thing. Zach Aston-Reese chipped in with a goal of his own and it was enough to earn the two points. This approach can probably work for now considering the next three games are against NJ and Buffalo twice. However, even if it might work it is certainly not ideal. If the Penguins know they will get Evgeni Malkin, Teddy Blueger, and Jason Zucker back before the playoffs they should probably think about what they can do to improve the depth situation on the team.
Casey DeSmith was excellent again stopping 24 out of 25 shots. His last five games have been .933, .958, 1.000, .939, and today’s was .960. If he and Jarry can play above average, in DeSmith’s case way above average, this can gloss over a lot of roster issues and would be a great way to navigate this stretch.
The two points were really important today because they have played in three more games than both the Bruins and Flyers. The Penguins sustain their cushion of points for now. Pittsburgh has 39 while Boston has 36 and Philadelphia has 33.
The Devils and Penguins will meet tomorrow at 1PM this time in Pittsburgh.
Thanks for reading!