The Pittsburgh Penguins had a great chance of beating the San Jose Sharks in San Jose for the first time since 1997.
Rookie defensemen Olli Maatta opened the scoring in the first with his eighth goal of the season with Tanner Glass and former Shark Marcel Goc assisting. The Penguins scored their second goal shortly after this time on the power play after Jason Demers went off for hooking. Chris Kunitz scored his 29th goal of the season and Evgeni Malkin got the only assist.
Momentum began to turn as the Sharks dominated the second period, yet only had one goal to show for it with Justin Braun scoring his fourth goal of the season though it went through several scoring changed and it seemed that the goal went off the stick of Adam Burish, which would have been his first goal of the season. Tommy Wingles and Andrew Desjardins assisted.
Patrick Marleau ended up tying the game up with a shorthanded goal as he made a tremendous individualeffort to get by Malkin and with the backhand snuck it by goalie Jeff Zatkoff. The Penguins retook the lead on Maatta’s second goal of the game (first of career) with the assists from Brandon Sutter and Jussi Jokinen. Yet, it didn’t take long for Brent Burns to tie the game at three after Joe Pavelski worked the puck free and fed the burly forward with a tremendous pass.
After a face off win, Pavelski worked the puck to Joe Thornton who attempted to just put the puck on net, yet the shot knucked on him leaving Zatkoff no chance to react to the change in direction and giving San Jose the 4-3 lead. In the closing minute of the game the Penguins nearly tied the game up, yet Antti Niemi came up with the biggest save of the night on a relatively quiet night. Marleau with an empty net appeared to have a breakaway, yet got tripped with no penalty shot being given.
With no call Sharks coach Todd McLellan became incensed about the no call, still San Jose played through and Burns with 2.6 seconds left scored his second goal of the game with the empty net.
Notes: Sidney Crosby has yet to score a goal against the Sharks and tonight was a minute five. San Jose out shot Pittsburgh 46 to 22.
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