The Penguins get Ville Koivunen back in the lineup for Rutger McGroarty and rotate their goalies.<\/p>\n
The Blue Jackets are opting to use the same lineup from their victory yesterday over Buffalo, including keeping Jet Greaves in the net for a second day in a row.<\/p>\n
The decision to get Koivunen back into the lineup pays instant dividends. Koivunen plays with some hunger in his return to the lineup on his very first shift, sending a shot off the knob of Greaves\u2019s stick and then knocking in the rebound of a Ben Kindel shot from in front to open the scoring just 1:50 into the game.<\/p>\n
Pittsburgh carries all the early play, Columbus doesn\u2019t get a shot on goal for almost six minutes. When they do, they score. The worm starts to turn when Justin Brazeau sent a pass a little off the mark for Anthony Mantha and the latter opted not to shoot the puck as a result. When this team starts passing up shots and looking to make everything perfect, bad things usually follow and it did here. CBJ gets to the offensive end. Denton Mateychuk rips a shot that Dmitri Voronkov deflects downward from point blank range. 1-1 game.<\/p>\n
The Blue Jackets strike again just 17 seconds later. Not a great sequence for Kindel as he fails to knock the puck off course coming up the ice and then sees Mason Marchment slip behind him and come free for the go-ahead goal.<\/p>\n
Another big turning point happens towards the end of the period. The Pens\u2019 fourth line gets a chance but Connor Dewar can\u2019t put it home. That line gets trapped in their own end, this time a Mateychuk shot is blocked by Blake Lizotte but becomes a bit of a broken play when it bounces straight to Zach Werenski. Werenski quickly feeds it down to Kirill Marchenko to lift into the net from a tight angle. 3-1 game now.<\/p>\n
Shots in the first are 11-9 CBJ, nothing for the Penguins in the last 10:42 in the shot department. Pittsburgh was great in the opening 7-8 minutes then watched as the Jackets took control in a major way over the second half of the period.<\/p>\n
It doesn\u2019t get any better in the early going, Boone Jenner bumps Kris Letang off a puck and then creates traffic in front of the net. That\u2019s all Werenski needs to flick a shot from the blueline that Silovs never sees, which makes it hard to stop. 4-1 game 47 seconds into the middle frame.<\/p>\n
Pittsburgh tries to chip away and even builds a few quality shifts but can\u2019t find any goals. They get another chance when Adam Fantilli is off to the penalty box for just the second power play of the game. Nothing comes of a sloppy and disjointed two minutes.<\/p>\n
The Pens find their goal before the end of the period. Dewar keeps the puck in the zone and feeds Noel Acciari wide open in the slot. Acciari fires in his fourth goal of the season to bring the score to 4-2 and bring Pittsburgh back within shouting distance.<\/p>\n
At the end, the Pens came into the second period two goals, they leave still down by two. Shots overall are 29-18 in favor of PIT.<\/p>\n
Columbus takes their third penalty of the night. At first it performs really poorly again, the second group gets out there and Tommy Novak fires a one-timer from the middle up past Greaves. 4-3 game and still plenty of time with over 16 minutes left.<\/p>\n
Silovs gets pulled for the extra player with 2 minutes left, They get setup in the zone for some 6v5 offense but get very little to the net, until Rickard Rakell scores with 12.8 seconds to go!<\/p>\n