After falling to the Boston Bruins, 3-2, in a Saturday matinee, the Pittsburgh Penguins looked to bounce back in yet another matinee matchup against the Toronto Maple Leafs on Sunday.
Unfortunately, they couldn’t quite take full advantage.
Despite rallying back from an early 2-0 deficit, the Penguins fell to the Leafs, 6-5, in overtime. The game was a back-and-forth affair that saw five different lead changes, early goals, late goals, and everything in between.
Even though they played pretty well for large chunks of the game, the Penguins’ goaltending and defense couldn’t quite come through for them. Rookie Joel Blomqvist surrendered six goals on 33 Toronto shots, two of which were on breakaway attempts.
“It’s a game of mistakes,” Blomqvist said. “Things aren’t always going to go your way, but you just need to reset and stay the course.
“I’m learning from each game and I feel more confident each time. So, just have to keep building it.”
The Penguins managed to avoid giving up the first goal on the first shot for the first time in four games, but they did – once again – surrender the first goal within the first five shots. Blomqvist was ambushed early on, and Max Domi potted his fourth of the season a little more than two minutes into the game to put Toronto ahead, 1-0.
Conor Timmins added one for the Leafs just two minutes later, but by mid-period, the Penguins began to storm back. They got three consecutive goals – all within three and a half minutes – by Cody Glass, Rickard Rakell, and Sidney Crosby, whose 19th of the season on the power play officially surpassed Bobby Hull for 18th on the NHL’s all-time goal-scoring list.
The Leafs knotted it back up at 3-3 on an Auston Matthews five-hole goal through a screen just over four minutes into the second period. Then, Bryan Rust did the “Bryan Rust” with under five minutes remaining in the second, swooping across the goal crease and putting one behind Jarod Woll on the backhand and making it 4-3 for the Penguins.
But there was still chaos to be had at the end of the second period. Leafs forward John Tavares was left all alone on a bad defensive change by the Penguins, and he was sprung on a breakaway on a great stretch pass from Jake McCabe. He put it home to tie it at 4-4 with just 56 seconds remaining in the period.
Then – with less than 10 seconds on the clock – Crosby won an offensive zone faceoff back to Erik Karlsson, who threw an errant pass to a breaking Matthew Knies. He put the breakaway shot behind…