Karlsson, Pettersson Look To Continue Momentum Surge

The Pittsburgh Penguins put forth exactly the kind of effort they needed to snap their six-game losing streak and secure a much-needed win against the Anaheim Ducks on Thursday.

And the tone was set early by the top players on their blue line.

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The pairing of Marcus Pettersson and Erik Karlsson was nothing short of spectacular, which is something that rings familiar when tracing back to last year. In this season’s earlygoing, the pairing struggled a bit and were separated for a handful of games, but they seem to have found momentum again since being reunited.

When they were on the ice in Thursday’s game, shots were 19-9, shot attempts were 46-14, and they produced a 77.2 percent expected goals share. They also had a team-best on-ice expected goals-for of 2.72, which topped the output of the Penguins’ dominant top line of Sidney Crosby, Evgeni Malkin, and Rickard Rakell.

Aside from a few miscues late in the game – which Pettersson acknowledged – the pairing was also sound defensively all night. Defensive execution is something that the team, as a whole, had struggled with in games prior, and doing that allowed them to get to their game yesterday.

“I think it started with decisions we made with the puck,” Pettersson said. “We didn’t turn as many pucks over and let teams get easy offense that way, and I feel like we controlled more of the game then. I always think that offense is the best defense, but we played tight. (Goaltender Alex Nedeljkovic) was great when he had to be, but we controlled most of the puck. I think that helped us a lot, and we made good decisions with it.”

Karlsson alone had six shots on goal and registered an absurd 21 shot attempts. He was everywhere in a good way during the game, and head coach Mike Sullivan talked about how much of a difference-maker Karlsson is when he’s playing at such a…