RECAP: Round And Round

The Pens beat the Wings 5-3 Saturday night. Once again they entered the third period behind on the scoreboard, once again they found a way to pull one out in the end. They’re now 5-6-1 when behind going into the third this season, which looking back a year ago under Johnston, is an incredible turn of events. Trump’s presidential campaign and Mike Sullivan’s rescue of the Penguins will go down in history as the most improbable stories of 2016. Certainly, the most memorable. That and a lot of likable celebrities died. And Pokemon Go happened. In a way, Mike Sullivan basically saved 2016 for a lot of people.

RECAP

Let’s get right to the point: the Pens went into the third down 3-1 at home against a Red Wings team that kind of sucks. Paul Steigerwald was screaming at the refs. Phil Bourque probably wanted Malkin deported.

Look, one of the major themes for this season has been this: teams throw everything they have at the Pens for two periods, trying to knock off the defending Stanley Cup champions. They peter themselves out, just as the Pens are saying, “okay, enough is enough.” Games don’t always play out this way, but it did again last night. It’s so predictable. So let’s go to basically the only period that matters anymore…

THIRD PERIOD

The Pens came out flying and it took only two minutes for them to pull within one. They controlled the puck in the Wings’ zone for a fortnight before Nick Bonino flung an innocent wrist shot through traffic, past Jared Coreau.

It was Coreau’s first ever NHL game — ROOT could have scanned the crowd and claimed anyone was his parents. Nobody would know.

Four and a half minutes later, as the Wings were about to receive a delayed penalty, Justin Schultz tied it when he sent a one-time slap shot from Ian Cole under a jumping Scott Wilson and into the net.

Both Cole and Schultz have points in three straight games. More on them in a minute.

The only question left after the Pens tied it was who was gonna win it. With nine minutes left to play, the Pens went tic-tac-toe, and Phil The Thrill was there to seal the deal.

Unreal look from Hagelin. ‘Member when people said Kessel couldn’t do one-timers? I ‘member.

For some reason, fans started doing the wave, which almost caused the Wings to come back. No idea why this would happen in a 4-3 hockey game, but it was a Turn Back The Clock night, so at least they didn’t play Gary Glitter.

Later, the Pens would have a goal disallowed, then earn a goal without putting the puck in the net when Matt Cullen was tripped up on an empty net breakaway.

Ball game.

OTHER STUFF

– Ian Cole and Justin Schultz are like Batman and Robin right now, except they’re both Batman. They were a combined plus-27 for 5-on-5 shot attempts.

– Pens had 10 scoring chances in the third, while the Wings only had three, and high danger chances were 5-1 Pens. The total number of scoring chances going into the period was 20-14, so the theory teams wear themselves out trying to skate when the Pens earns another stripe.

–  11 players had a point for the Pens.

– Detroit sucks.