Game Recap: Penguins Score Three Unanswered To Down Bolts 4-3

After getting totally embarrassed by the lowly Canucks on Thursday night, the Tampa Bay Lightning played better but lost their seventh in eight games 4-3 to the Sidney Crosby led Pittsburgh Penguins last night. To no ones surprise, the Bolts blew a two goal lead.

The Pengun’s Sidney Crosby opened the scoring at 12:08 as he circled around and tucked the puck under Vasilevskiy as he’s falling down. Crosby’s 19th was assisted by Kris Letang and Brian Doumilin.

Jonathan Drouin scored his fifth, on the power play from the left circle to tie it at one at 17:57 from Nikita Kucherov and Anton Stralman. Evgeni Malkin was in the box for four minutes for high sticking Drouin.

With his first-period goal, Drouin established a new career-high for goals in a season (five). He scored four goals each of last two seasons.

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The first period ended with the Pens leading 15-8 in shots. The Lightning were 1-1 on the power play and 2-2 on the penalty kill.

Valtteri Filppula scored his sixth goal of the season assisted by Nikita Nesterov and at 3:38 of the second period.

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Jonathan Drouin performed a little magic and made it 3-1 Bolts at 10:19 from Jason Garrison and Vladislav Namestnikov. Drouin went back hand top shelf to beat Matt Murray after untangling himself from a Pittsburgh defenseman. Drouin scored multiple goals in a game for the first time in his NHL career. That was Garisson’s first assist since October 22.

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The Penguin’s moved to within one as Malkin scored his 11th at 17:25 from Letang and Phil Kessel.

The second period ended with the Penguin’s outshooting the Bolts 26-14 and the Bolts outhitting the Pens 18-11.

With Nesterov in the box, Crosby beats Vasilevskiy on a one-timer from the slot to tie it at three. His 20th goal was assisted by Kessel and Letang at 5:08.

Malkin scored 11 seconds into the Pittsburgh power play to put the Pens up 4-3. The goal was assisted by Trevor Daly and Kessel at 8:36 of the third.

The third ended with the Pens on top 4-3. They led in shots 37-23.

“I thought tonight was a step forward. I think we played pretty well…Obviously the result sucks,” said defenseman Anton Stralman.

Coach Jon Cooper said, “You look at our effort level, our battle, our compete, it was there…in the end, special teams cost us. There’s a lot of hockey left to be played. I thought we did a lot of good things tonight. You can’t win in this league when you give up 4 or 5 a night.”

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The Bolts travel to Calgary to take on the Flames at 9:30 PM on Wednesday.

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