Carter segues from potential heel to hero in overtime win vs. Sabres

There can be good penalties in this game.

Tripping a guy in the offensive zone with 4.6 seconds left in the third period of a tied game isn't one of them.

So no, that wasn't really what Jeff Carter had in mind when regulation time was running on fumes and he inadvertently got the blade of his stick into the skates of the Sabres' Zemgus Girgensons.

"It's a penalty," Carter said. "I'm reaching for a puck, and I get it in his feet."

That was pretty clear. As was the reality that Carter would have cost the Penguins a precious point in the Eastern Conference playoff race if Buffalo had scored on the resultant power play.

But the Sabres couldn't -- the Penguins' penalty-killers haven't allowed an opponent to do that in a franchise-record 15 consecutive games -- and Carter got a chance for redemption less than a minute after his minor expired.

He didn't need a second one.

Carter steered a Kris Letang pass behind Sabres goalie Malcolm Subban at 2:53 of overtime to give the Penguins a 3-2 victory at PPG Paints Arena Friday night and, in the process, stretch their winning streak to six games.

Although the game-winner came on what looked like a well-designed play, Carter said it simply was a reaction to the way the Sabres aligned for a faceoff at center ice.

No one lined up opposite Letang, who was on the left side, and Carter was able to win the faceoff to him after Buffalo center Cody Eakin failed in an apparent attempt to knock the puck into the Penguins' end directly off the draw.

"(Letang) was all alone on the one side, so I just tried to whack it over to him and was able to get a jump on (Eakin)," Carter said. "They had their (defensemen) up, too, so I knew that as soon as I got it over to (Letang), we had a two-on-one."

Letang carried the puck down the left side while Carter charged down the slot toward the Sabres' net. Letang slid a pass between the legs of Buffalo defenseman Henri Jokiharju and Carter directed the puck into the net.

"That was a great goal," Mike Sullivan said. "It was a great play, all around."

Carter made it look easy, but getting anything past Subban had been more than a little challenging all evening, as he stopped 45 of the 48 shots the Penguins threw at him.

And even when they got a puck by Subban, there was no guarantee it would make it into the net, as Evan Rodrigues discovered during the Penguins' 21-shot barrage in the first period.

Rodrigues already had staked the Penguins to a 1-0 lead when he beat Subban from just below the top of the right circle during a power play at 5:53, and appeared to get his second of the game during another man-advantage, about 5 1/2 minutes before the first intermission.

He threw a shot past Subban's on the blocker side from near the goal line to the left of the net, only to have Subban knock the puck out of the air with his left arm. Which just happened to be behind his back at the time.

"I don't even think he meant to kind of save that," Rodrigues said. "He was just pushing over, kind of leading with his blocker, and I think his arm was just kind of trailing behind him."

Although the Penguins got a power-play goal from Rodrigues earlier in the period and their work with the extra man was characterized by Sullivan as "a difference-maker," their penalty-killing unit came up with the most important special-teams performance of the game when it limited the Sabres to one shot while Carter was in the box during overtime.

"We were stingy on the entry (into the Penguins' end) and that limited their zone time," Sullivan said. "I thought the guys did a really good job at pressuring at the right areas and just making the entry difficult. ... I though the killers, in general, did a terrific job."

Breaching the Penguins' blue line then was tough; generating anything once the Sabres had gotten into the attacking zone was equally difficult.

"We did a good job at making their entries hard," Brock McGinn said. "And when they did get set up, we did a good job of taking away their shooting lanes."

Nothing unusual about that. The Penguins have not allowed a goal in their past 35 shorthanded situations, and they continue to lead the league with a kill rate of 93 percent.

McGinn not only helped the Penguins to snuff three Buffalo power plays, but scored their second goal, beating Subban from the slot for a 2-0 lead at 6:45 of the second period.

It was the eighth goal of the season for McGinn, matching his total with Carolina in 2020-21, as he has proven to be a more-than-capable replacement for Brandon Tanev on the third line.

"Probably, as a coach, they're sitting there saying, 'You never have to worry about him, because you know exactly what you're going to get every night,' " Carter said. "He comes to work, and he leaves it all out there. You're starting to see the offensive side of his game kind of come through."

Regular offensive contributions from bottom-six forwards like McGinn are just one factor in the surge that has lifted the Penguins closer to first place than ninth in the Eastern Conference.

"For the most part, we're playing the right way," Carter said. "We're hard on pucks. We're making smart decisions with pucks when we have them. ... Our team defense has been, for the most part, very good during this run. ... Everything's just kind of coming together here for us."

Even when the Penguins get a penalty that could make it come undone.

MORE FROM THE GAME

• Rodrigues' strong showing helped him to earn yet another round of praise from his teammates. "He can play either wing," Carter said. "He can play center. He can play all the way up and down your lineup, and his game never really changes. He plays the right way. He's hard on pucks and his skill -- he's always had it, but it's really showing this year. He's playing with a lot of confidence. He's been really, really good for us."

• Sidney Crosby accounted for five of the Penguins' nine giveaways.

• Despite being dominated in the opening period, Buffalo showed admirable resilience, especially for a team that had played in Minnesota the previous night. "Give them credit," Carter said. "They don't go away. ... They play right to the end, and they play hard. They're a good, young team with a bright future."

• One factor in the Penguins' penalty-killing success is how rarely they've had to do it; they've been shorthanded just 71 times, fewer than any team except Seattle. "We're trying to play an aggressive style," Sullivan said. "We're trying to play an in-your-face game. But we've got to stay on the right side of the line. We're preaching a lot of (attention to) details."

• The Penguins are 24-4-3 in their past 31 games against the Sabres and have outscored Buffalo, 113-60, during that span.

• Carter's overtime winner was the 15th of his career, tying him for the fifth most among active players.

• Former Penguins assistant GM Tom Fitzgerald, now GM in New Jersey, and his wife, Kerry, were on hand to witness the NHL debut of their son, Casey, a defenseman with the Sabres. He logged 16 minutes, 42 seconds of ice time, assisted on the first Buffalo goal and had a vigorous exchange of punches with Sam Lafferty, earning recognition as the No. 3 star of the game.

THE THREE STARS

As selected at PPG Paints Arena:

1. Jeff Carter, Penguins
2. Evan Rodrigues, Penguins
3. Casey Fitzgerald, Sabres

THE HIGHLIGHTS

THE INJURIES

• Evgeni Malkin is recovering from offseason knee surgery and has been practicing with the team.

• Bryan Rust has missed the past 10 games and is on injured-reserve because of an unspecified lower-body injury.

• Jake Guentzel has an apparent injury to his right hand and has been participating in on-ice workouts with Rust.

• Brian Boyle is listed as "day-to-day" because of an unspecified lower-body injury.

THE LINEUPS

Sullivan's lines and pairings:

Evan Rodrigues--Sidney Crosby-Kasperi Kapanen
Jason Zucker-Jeff Carter-Danton Heinen
Zach Aston-Reese-Teddy Blueger-Brock McGinn
Drew O'Connor-Sam Lafferty-Dominik Simon

Brian Dumoulin-Kris Letang
Marcus Pettersson-John Marino
Mike Matheson-Chad Ruhwedel

And for Don Granato's Sabres:

Jeff Skinner-Tage Thompson-Victor Olofsson
Brett Murray-Dylan Cozens-Kyle Okposo
Rasmus Asplund-Cody Eakin-Vinnie Hinostroza
Zemgus Girgensons-Mark Jankowski-John Hayden

Rasmus Dahlin-Henri Jokiharju
Jacob Bryson-Casey Fitzgerald
Colin Miller-Mark Pysyk

THE SCHEDULE

The Penguins are scheduled to practice Saturday at noon at UPMC Lemieux Sports Complex in Cranberry before traveling to New Jersey for a game against the Devils Sunday.

THE CONTENT

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