BUFFALO, N.Y. – It took several minutes to find their groove, but once they settled in, the Pittsburgh Penguins took a decisive 6-3 victory from the Boston Bruins to open the 2024 Prospects Challenge in Buffalo, New York.
The Penguins scored five unanswered goals to close things out, and received multi-point performances from a handful of intriguing rookies. Leading the charge was 21-year-old and 2021 second-round draft pick Tristan Broz, who buried two goals and an assist.
“The win is the most important thing,” Broz said when asked about his individual performance. “I haven’t played for anything too meaningful in a while, and not this counts in the regular-season standings, but it was good. It was fun.”
Things were choppy for the Penguins at first, but the same could be said for the Bruins. The first five minutes of the game was marred by icings, bouncing pucks and failed connections to slow things down. However, Boston found ways to get quality looks with their sixth shot leading to the game’s first goal at 7:34 of the opening frame.
The Bruins took a 2-0 lead on a bar-down snipe from John Farinacci, a name familiar to Wilkes-Barre/Scranton fans after spending last season with the Providence Bruins.
After that, the game quickly turned in the Penguins’ favor.
“The first 10 minutes got a little squirrely, but I thought we did a great job in the second and third periods getting to the things we’ve been talking about,” said Wilkes-Barre/Scranton head coach Kirk MacDonald. “Wanting to hunt pucks, having a good F3 so we’re getting over the top. Our second and third goals of the game were a byproduct of our F3 hunting, creating turnovers so that we were able to play quick in transition.”
Precision passing on the power play led to Avery Hayes knocking in the Penguins’ first tally midway through the first period. Even though Boston re-established their two goal edge shortly thereafter on a puzzling play that saw goaltender Taylor Gauthier trucked by a crease-crashing Bruin, the Penguins prospects were unfazed. Gabe Klassen found another power-play goal for Pittsburgh, making it 3-2 before the first intermission.
The second period was all Penguins, and featured an early strike from Broz and a pair of late goals from Mathieu De St. Phalle and Rutger McGroarty. That dominance continued into the third period, where Broz potted his second goal and third point of the game.
“I thought [Broz] was great,” MacDonald said. “He was around the puck, made some really…
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