GLENDALE, Ariz. -- In the end, it was just so predictable, right?
Overtime and Phil Kessel? Pssh, those two are practically synonymous with each other.
When Kessel redirected Sidney Crosby's perfectly-placed, shot-pass behind Coyotes goalie Darcy Kuemper with :49.9 remaining in overtime Friday night, it not only gave the Penguins a much-needed 3-2 win, it was the 10th time that Kessel had scored an OT winner in his career:
Seven of those GWGs have come during his four years in Pittsburgh, which is also kind of predictable given the prodigious offensive talents that the Penguins can employ in overtime and on the power play.
On Friday night, the stars aligned for the Penguins at the 2:51 mark of OT when Kessel sent Brian Dumoulin in on a partial break against Kuemper with a perfect sauce pass. But before Dumoulin could make a move or get off a shot, he was hooked from behind by Richard Panik, drawing the whistle of Tim Peel. That penalty gave the Penguins just their third power play chance, this one a 4-on-3 advantage for all but the remaining nine seconds of OT. They would need almost all of it, too.
Evgeni Malkin, Kris Letang, Crosby and Kessel worked their magic as the Coyotes defense collapsed into a small triangle. From the top of the circles, Crosby found a small seam in Arizona's defense, hitting Kessel's open stick blade and ramping the puck under the left arm of Kuemper and into the net, as Crosby would explain to me:
Granted, there were no shortage of heroes in overtime for the Penguins. Matt Murray made a great diving stop on Alex Galchenyuk on a 2-on-1 break a little over one minute into the extra session. And Dumoulin, who has one goal to his name this season, certainly deserves praise for drawing the penalty on Panik.
But what was not so predictable was what happened 30 seconds before Kessel turned out the lights at Gila River Arena.
Kessel, as you may have heard, is not known for his defensive prowess. He has been known, from time to time, to lack a "defensive conscience," as Mike Sullivan calls it. The Penguins' power play, in general, has been known to lack a defensive conscience. They have surrendered a league-worst 10 short-handed goals this season, two of them last weekend in Southern California against the Ducks' Jakob Silfverberg and the Kings' Anze Kopitar.
The Coyotes, if you haven't heard, not only have the NHL's top-ranked penalty killing unit, 88.2 percent entering Friday, they have also scored a dozen short-handed goals this season, second-most in the league.
And damned if Derek Stepan didn't try to make it 13.
Stepan, whose goal late in regulation forced overtime to further his reputation as a Penguins-killer dating back to his days with the Rangers, had a clear path to victory with 1:25 remaining.
Letang had just carried the puck into the Penguins' zone and was looking to make a to D-to-D pass across the blue line but Stepan blocked the pass with his shin pad sending the puck along the wall where he was able to chip it past Malkin and down the left side of the ice.
Stepan gave chase. If he reaches it first, it's a breakaway.
But he didn't.
He didn't because flying like a bat out of H-E double hockey sticks was Kessel, who was churning his legs on the backcheck:
Kessel had been back at the top of the left faceoff circle but he instinctively took off for his own end the split-second the puck got past Malkin.
Though he was trailing Stepan by a good 10 feet, Kessel quickly made up the distance.
Sensing that Kessel was gaining on him, Stepan slammed on the brakes looking to pull up for a shot or for a teammate trailing on the play. Neither of those happened because not only did Kessel win the race, he won the battle when he stripped the puck clean off Stepan's stick. Calmly, Kessel slipped the puck over to Malkin and set in motion his own game-winning goal.
Due to the rash of penalties in the first period, Kessel played just 5:31 but he ended up playing 21:03, his sixth-most minutes this season. Well, for a guy who has taken a lot of grief about his conditioning and his defense over the years, Kessel quieted his critics with one incredible shift in overtime.