This time, there was no premature victory lap, no frustrated head coach fuming at the virtual press conference, no squandered two points in the standings.
For the second time in three games, the Penguins on Sunday exploded with three goals in the first period to stun their visitors and fire up the 2,800 fans at PPG Paints Arena. They apparently learned a hard lesson or two the other night.
The Penguins kept pushing for more and would eventually pull away from the red-hot New York Rangers. Five players scored for them in their 5-1 victory.
Mika Zibanejad scored on the first shot of the game and the Rangers had seven shots on goal before the first television timeout. But hustle plays by Bryan Rust and others in that period helped the Penguins get the ice tilted the other way.
With 3:47 left in the first, John Marino tied it up with his first goal of the season. He beat Alexandar Georgiev with a wrist shot from the right wall two seconds after a Rangers penalty expired. Kasperi Kapanen soon scored on a breakaway.
Sidney Crosby then split the defense and whacked a skittering puck past the glove of Georgiev, chasing him from the game with three goals on six shots.
The PPG Paints Arena crowd was very pleased but maybe a little out of breath from their unexpected plyometric routine after the Penguins scored three times in 61 seconds, the fastest a NHL team has accomplished that feat in 2021.
The previous possessor of that mark? Yup, it was the Penguins, who scored three goals in 71 seconds against the Philadelphia Flyers on Thursday. Of course, that would be all they got that night. After jumping out to a 3-0 lead in the first, the Penguins took their foot off the gas and let the Flyers come back to win.
This time, they followed up their latest scoring outburst by chasing more goals. Crosby banked a perfect stretch pass across two lines to spring Jake Guentzel on a breakaway, but Guentzel couldn’t beat new Rangers goalie Keith Kinkaid.
During the third period, Zach Aston-Reese hustled nearly the full 200 feet to force a turnover. Evgeni Malkin swooped in, made one Rangers defender miss and put the puck on a platter for Kapanen, but Kinkaid kicked that one out.
With 6:03 left, Kapanen returned the favor, getting the puck to Malkin on a 2-on-1 rush. Malkin buried his opportunity, his second goal in as many games. Aston-Reese also made it two straight with a goal to put the Penguins up, 5-1.
Defensively, the Penguins kept the Rangers mostly in check after taking a 3-1 lead. There were a few anxious moments in the second period when the Penguins got careless looking for head-man passes. But DeSmith got the job done.
DeSmith, who was making just his second start since Feb. 11, stopped the final 23 shots he faced to win for the fifth time in seven starts this season.
The Penguins gained ground with the win but lost a surging forward to injury.
Jared McCann, who scored the deciding goal in Saturday’s 4-3 victory against the Flyers, spent the majority of the final two periods in the dressing room.
Prior to his departure, McCann appeared to finally be rediscovering his game after a year-long funk. The winger had been using his wheels to attack the net instead of lingering on the perimeter. He had three goals, an assist and a plus-5 rating in his last five games heading into Sunday and then set up Kapanen’s goal.
McCann was sidelined by a lower-body injury for three weeks in February. If he misses another chunk of time it would really hurt the Penguins. Fellow left winger Jason Zucker is on long-term injured reserve and McCann had filled in capably for him on the Malkin line. The team’s depth at that spot is already thin.
They improved to 4-1-0 against the Rangers, who arrived in Pittsburgh on a roll.
The Rangers had won three in a row and six of eight to pull within four points of the Penguins and the Flyers, who were tied for fourth in the East Division. And they did it without Artemi Panarin, the Hart Trophy finalist from 2019-20 who on Feb. 22 took a leave of absence from the team for personal reasons.
Winger Chris Kreider is among the NHL leaders in goals. Second-year defenseman Adam Fox has been superb once again. Their goalies had been sharp. And Alexis Lafreniere, the top pick in the 2020 draft, seemed to be finding his footing.
Add up all of those factors, and the Penguins on Sunday found themselves skating in yet another important and challenging hockey night in Pittsburgh.
The Penguins and the Rangers will face off again Tuesday at PPG Paints Arena.
