October 30, 2026<\/a><\/p>\nBut that\u2019s all it took for Cooley to force the extra session with his third goal of the night.<\/p>\n
\u201cUnder 20 seconds, and they score,\u201d Pens forward Evgeni Malkin said. \u201cWe need to play so much harder \u2014 whole five guys. \u2026 It\u2019s a little bit tough that we lost.\u201d<\/p>\n
Tough indeed. Under normal circumstances, leaving one point on the table against a good Western Conference team in late October isn\u2019t the worst thing in the world. But given the 0-4 road trip the Penguins just concluded, sweeping the ensuing homestand would\u2019ve gone a long way to restoring some confidence.<\/p>\n
The Penguins took the first two steps toward doing that with their 4-0 shutout of Florida on Oct. 22, and their 3-2 overtime win against Nashville on Saturday. Going 3-for-3 upon returning to Pittsburgh was less than a minute from happening until Cooley snatched the win away from them.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou\u2019ve got to make sure you get the quick support on a puck recovery so we can get the puck out. Get it to the neutral zone and end the game. It didn\u2019t happen,\u201d Pens coach Dan Muse said of Cooley\u2019s third goal. \u201cThey make a play into the slot and get the second chance right afterward.\u201d<\/p>\n
It\u2019s not so much what the Penguins lost by yielding one point at the end of the game. It\u2019s the exhausting component of working so hard to come back from a 2-0 deficit to take the lead and see it evaporate so quickly and with so little time left.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s also the emotional aspect of knowing that they almost got back to level with this homestand after getting blanked on the previous road trip, only to have to head up to Montreal for Halloween with a late trick from Cooley.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt (stinks) we couldn\u2019t get the win,\u201d Kindel said. \u201cBut (we have) got to just have a quick turnaround here and get ready for Montreal.\u201d<\/p>\n
Kindel could\u2019ve been the headline-maker with that potential game-winning goal in his first game back after a mid-fight medical scare, leaving Utah after these teams faced each other 10 days ago.<\/p>\n
Goalie Arturs Silovs could\u2019ve been the story with a stellar 30-save performance. Instead, it was Cooley\u2019s hat trick homecoming that stole the show.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat (third goal) was a great one,\u201d Cooley said. \u201cThat was one of my favorite goals I think I\u2019ve scored.\u201d<\/p>\n
Cooley now has four in his last two games and seven on the season. The former No. 3 overall draft pick seems to be on the ascent and may be heading into the rarefied air of the NHL.<\/p>\n
I mean, it\u2019s not Pittsburgh air. But it\u2019s not bad, I guess.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"West Mifflin native Logan Cooley was asked what got into him after his hat trick to help fuel…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":899984,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[66],"tags":[385,99],"class_list":["post-899983","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\/899983","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=899983"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/899983\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/899984"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=899983"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=899983"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=899983"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}