Penguins
5-Minute Penguins Wrap: Hot Goalie, OT Mistake Sours Penguins Effort vs. Capitals
The Pittsburgh Penguins dominated the Washington Capitals in every way. Shots, scoring chances, puck possession, and even power-play goals. The Penguins even drew praise from head coach Mike Sullivan who expressed affirmation for much of his team’s game, but the Washington Capitals escaped from PPG Paints Arena with a 4-3 OT win over the Penguins.
“That’s hockey, sometimes you get lucky, sometimes you get lots of shots but can’t score,” Penguins center Evgeni Malkin summarized the game.
The Washington Capitals received an all-world performance from their goalie Ilya Samsonov, who replaced starter Vitek Vanecek about six minutes into the game. Vanecek was reportedly taken into concussion protocol, but it was the Penguins who were scratching their heads trying to beat Samsonov.
Dan both asked Sullivan about Kasperi Kapanen, and dove into his game performance, as well. Kapanen had four shots on goal and seven attempts, and several scoring chances, but was caught on the ice in overtime after a bad turnover. The answers aren’t what some want to hear.
The final shot counter was 45-29. Later in the third period, it was even more unbalanced as the Penguins held a 43-20 advantage before a Washington surge, and Jake Guentzel similarly shrugged off the cruel hockey gods.
“I thought we had a lot of chances and I like how we played tonight. I thought we were pretty good for 60 minutes and just came up a little bit short,” Guentzel said. “But sometimes you’re going to run into a goalie that makes a couple of saves. I mean, it’s the NHL, you expect them to be good, so maybe (you) get a little frustrated but I think we’ve just got to get to the net a little more.”
Check out the PHN 5-Minute Pittsburgh Penguins postgame wrap. Like and subscribe to the National Hockey Now YouTube channel.