On Saturday at PPG Paints Arena, the Pittsburgh Penguins welcomed back members of the squad that won the franchise\u2019s fourth Stanley Cup title in 2016 in recognition of the upcoming 10th anniversary of that accomplishment.<\/p>\n
A ceremony celebrated the likes of superstars such as Sidney Crosby and Marc-Andre Fleury, as well as contributors like Eric Fehr and Ben Lovejoy, as one of the brightest moments in the 58-year history of the franchise was relived.<\/p>\n
As for the current edition of the Penguins, things are also a bit on the radiant side, particularly after they claimed their sixth consecutive win, a 6-5 victory against the New York Rangers that became uncomfortably close in the final stages of regulation.<\/p>\n
Forwards Noel Acciari and Anthony Mantha each scored a pair of goals for the Penguins, and goaltender Stuart Skinner made 15 saves on 20 shots, improving his record to 19-12-4.<\/p>\n
Victory wasn\u2019t achieved without some anxiety, however.<\/p>\n
The Rangers \u2013 who have essentially declared they are rebuilding once again \u2013 outscored the Penguins 4-3 in the third period to make it a one-goal game after the hosts had built up a seemingly comfortable lead.<\/p>\n
That led to a recollection of more recent memories for the Penguins, namely the occasions in December when they blew multi-goal leads in the third period to lose several contests during a squalid eight-game losing streak.<\/p>\n
\u201cMaybe a month ago or so, we lose that game in overtime, or they come back and take us to overtime,\u201d Acciari said. \u201cBut the fact that we were able to hold on to it was good. We\u2019ll learn from it and move forward.\u201d<\/p>\n
This season, the Penguins have lavishly celebrated their captivating history \u2014 at least the segments that don\u2019t involve the occasional bankruptcy or seasons when they won fewer than 20 games \u2014 with events such as Saturday\u2019s ceremony, which included former coach Mike Sullivan, who now guides the Rangers, as well as former general manager Jim Rutherford, now the president of the Vancouver Canucks.<\/p>\n
During the preseason, the recently retired Fleury played in a preseason game as a send-off to Pittsburgh fans, then in October, the organization reintroduced its hall of fame by inducting franchise pillars such as Ron Francis and Kevin Stevens.<\/p>\n
For first-year coach Dan Muse, acknowledging that history is vital as he tries to craft a new course for the club as it seeks a return to the postseason for the first time since 2022.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s huge benefits to it, for sure,\u201d Muse said. \u201cI\u2019m excited for everybody in the organization that\u2019s still here who gets to celebrate and everybody that was a part of that team coming back. So, obviously, a special day for all of them, and I think a special day for the entire organization.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mantha got the day started in the right direction for the Penguins with his 18th goal of the season 157 seconds into regulation.<\/p>\n
That was followed by Acciari\u2019s fifth goal of the campaign at 6:05 of the first period.<\/p>\n
Mantha struck again at 12:59 of the second period, giving him eight points (five goals, three assists) in his past four games.<\/p>\n
\u201cThings are finding me,\u201d Mantha said. \u201cI\u2019m finding the puck and good things are happening.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Rangers broke through with forward Alexis Lafreniere\u2019s 11th goal at 18:29 of the second frame during a power-play sequence.<\/p>\n
The Penguins appeared to secure victory early in the third when forward Rickard Rakell scored his 10th goal during a power-play opportunity at the 1:40 mark, then was followed by Acciari striking again only 20 seconds later.<\/p>\n
But the Rangers had no interest in going down quietly as they got offense from forward Vince Trocheck (his 12th goal at the 9:12 mark while short-handed), then defenseman Vladislav Gavrikov (his ninth goal at 15:15).<\/p>\n
Penguins rookie forward Ben Kindel seemed to stamp down the uprising at 17:28 with his 12th goal on an empty net.<\/p>\n
But the Rangers persisted, getting goals by Lafreniere (at 18:43) and forward Will Cuylle (his 13th at 19:49 with goaltender Jonathan Quick pulled for an extra attacker).<\/p>\n
Arguably, Acciari\u2019s biggest play on the day was a faceoff win in the left circle of the defensive zone to burn off the final four seconds of regulation without incident.<\/p>\n
\u201cI really liked our response, the way that we were able to battle through that,\u201d Skinner said. \u201cEspecially (Acciari) winning that last draw with (four) seconds left. That gets us the two points, and that\u2019s what we were looking for tonight.\u201d<\/p>\n
The current Penguins want to have a lot of nights like the 2016 squad enjoyed a decade ago.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s exciting having these guys back here, 10 years later, celebrating,\u201d Acciari said. \u201cWe didn\u2019t want to disappoint them with a loss here. We were able to get that so they can keep their party going for the weekend. Fleury in the preseason just started us off.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe want to get back to the playoffs. The past few years, it\u2019s been tough. Two long summers. We have a team here now that we\u2019re close, we\u2019re having fun and we\u2019re winning. We want to ride that out.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"On Saturday at PPG Paints Arena, the Pittsburgh Penguins welcomed back members of the squad that won the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":442078,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[66],"tags":[385,99],"class_list":["post-442077","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nhl","tag-nhl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/442077","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=442077"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/442077\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/442078"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=442077"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=442077"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=442077"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}