Murray, Malkin Charge Comeback: Penguins Report Card vs. Bruins

The Pittsburgh Penguins weren’t ready for the 12:30 p.m faceoff Sunday afternoon. Boston ripped a pair of goals on a handful of Penguins mistakes in the first few minutes of the game, but the Penguins rode a wave of anger and emotion for a four-goal comeback win over the Boston Bruins, 4-3 at PPG Paints Arena on Sunday.

Penguins coach Mike Sullivan went back to Matt Murray in the Penguins net, which tormented the Penguins fan base. It wasn’t a Chernobyl meltdown, but the alarms were sounded, and the anger was pervasive. After the quick goals, Penguins fans at PPG honored Murray with a few Bronx cheers for his efforts.

“But we just stuck with it. We continued to fight through things, and score consistently throughout the game,” Penguins captain Sidney Crosby said. “It wasn’t easy in Boston and it wasn’t easy (Sunday), but we found a way.”

The Penguins didn’t exactly help their goalie in those first two minutes by leaving Patrice Bergeron, and Anders Bjork uncovered in the scoring areas on odd-man rushes.

The Penguins added insult to injury when defenseman Jack Johnson scored an own-goal midway through the first period. For a team that has been wildly successful in the first three-plus months of the season, things felt like a tinderbox.

A 30-13-5 record didn’t buy much patience for the angry crowd.

From that tinder came a four-goal Penguins comeback and emotional swings which included fury at the officials, Bronx cheers and elation as winger Bryan Rust intensely pumped his fists and pointed at Evgeni Malkin when the pair combined for the eventual game-winning goal.