It looked like the Penguins were going to be in for a rough night in the opening minutes of Sunday's eventual 5-1 win against the Rangers at PPG Paints Arena.
Just over a minute into the game, the Rangers got an odd-man rush with Mika Zibanejad and Alexis Lafreniere, with Cody Ceci caught as the only man back for the Penguins. Zibanejad tried a head-fake move and beat Casey DeSmith with first shot of the game.
By the first television timeout at the 6:09 mark, the Penguins were being outshot 8-1. They wouldn't even record their second shot on goal for almost another eight minutes.
Then, much like in the game against the Flyers three days before, the Penguins scored three goals in quick succession. John Marino tied the game just as a Penguins power play expired:
Kasperi Kapanen found himself on a breakaway and buried it, something he's turned into a habit as of late:
"It's all situational," Kapanen said of his knack for getting breakaways. "I try to find openings, whether the D is kind of standing still, I just try to get some speed. I use my speed as an advantage. Most of the times it's just guys finding me and giving me a chance to get on that breakaway."
Sidney Crosby, 1:01 after Marino's trying goal, gave the Penguins a two-goal lead:
After Kapanen bounced around the lineup early in the season, he seems to have found a home on Malkin's right wing, and it's hard to imagine the pair being broken up anytime soon with the way they're playing. They've been together for the last three games, reunited after Kapanen's five-game stint on the top line.
When Malkin and Kapanen have been together on the ice this season, the Penguins have controlled 52.27 of the shot attempts taken, and scored 56.25 percent of all goals at nine goals for, and seven against.
"I played with him earlier on in the year," Kapanen said of Malkin. "But I feel like when you play with new guys, it always takes some time to kind of know where he is and mesh together. So I think lately we've been finding each other and playing better."
They've shown an ability to create a lot of chances off the rush, and they did it again in the third period on Sunday when Kapanen set up Malkin for a goal.
"Geno looks great out there," Kapanen said. "He's making a lot of plays and he looks like the Geno that's dangerous every night."
I said to Mike Sullivan after the game that it seems like they've shown more chemistry and have been finding each other on the ice in the last couple of games, and asked what he's seen as far as their connection goes.
"Yeah, they have," he said. "They've established some pretty good chemistry. Geno's a really dangerous player off the rush, he sees the ice so well. He commands so much attention with Kappy's speed. Kappy can open up the ice for him, and Geno can get the puck to Kappy with the speed that he has. They've had some chemistry, we've really liked it when we've put them together. They've had some good games. We're certainly encouraged by that."
Zach Aston-Reese's goal 40 seconds later capped off the win. Unlike the game against the Flyers, when the Flyers clawed back and won 4-3, the Penguins didn't squander the lead after scoring those quick three goals.
"We just talked about playing the game the right way and playing on our toes, and defending hard when we needed to," Sullivan said about what was different with this game. "But from a mindset standpoint, trying to score goals. We certainly don't want to be a team that sits on leads. I think our team is at it's best when we're continuing to try to score. We just have to do it the right way."
"We just tried to keep putting the pucks behind them and applying pressure," Kapanen added. "The game against Philly, we kind of let our foot off the gas. I think we played a pretty solid 60 minutes, and it shows. That's the way we've got to play every game."
MORE FROM THE GAME
• Casey DeSmith recovered from the early goal against and stopped the next 23 shots.
• McCann was injured sometime in the second period and left the ice with five minutes remaining and never returned. Sullivan said after the game he was still being evaluated for an upper-body injury. Evan Rodrigues stepped up in his place on the second line.
THE ESSENTIALS
THE THREE STARS
As selected at PPG Paints Arena:
1. Kasperi Kapanen, Penguins
2. Evgeni Malkin, Penguins
3. Sidney Crosby, Penguins
THE INJURIES
• Defenseman Juuso Riikola has been out since suffering a upper-body on Jan. 19. He has been practicing with the team in a regular jersey for about two weeks now.
• Forward Jason Zucker is out "longer-term" with a lower-body injury sustained on Feb. 23.
• Defenseman Mark Friedman is day-to-day with an upper-body injury sustained on March 4.
• Forward Jared McCann is being evaluated for an upper-body injury sustained Sunday.
THE LINEUPS
Sullivan’s lines and pairings:
Jake Guentzel-Sidney Crosby-Bryan Rust
Jared McCann-Evgeni Malkin-Kasperi Kapanen
Zach Aston-Reese-Teddy Blueger-Brandon Tanev
Evan Rodrigues-Mark Jankowski-Anthony Angello
Brian Dumoulin-Kris Letang
Mike Matheson-Cody Ceci
Marcus Pettersson-John Marino
And for David Quinn's Rangers:
Alexis Lafreniere-Mika Zibanejad-Pavel Buchnevich
Chris Kreider-Ryan Strome-Kaapo Kakko
Kevin Rooney-Filip Chytil-Julien Gauthier
Brendan Lemieux-Brett Howden-Phillip Di Giuseppe
Ryan Lindgren-Adam Fox
K'Andre Miller-Jacob Trouba
Libor Hajek-Brendan Smith
THE SCHEDULE
The Penguins have a scheduled off day on Monday. They'll play the Rangers again on Tuesday at 6 p.m.
THE CONTENT
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