The Pittsburgh Penguins were excellent on Monday night, taking an early lead and generally dominating play against the Tampa Bay Lightning. In the end, it was just barely enough, as the Pens managed to win by a 3-2 score in overtime, with team captain Sidney Crosby scoring the decisive goal.
It is difficult to overstate just how important that goal was.
Pittsburgh has, without question, been the better team in the series through two games. The Penguins outshot Tampa Bay 35-20 in Game 1 and managed to better that total in Game 2, ultimately holding a 41-21 shooting advantage. Lightning backup Andrei Vasilevskiy has outdueled Pittsburgh goaltender Matt Murray, but otherwise the series has been weighted in the Penguins' favour.
Being the better team isn’t good enough, though. Goaltending was the difference in the first game and it almost decided the second, and without Monday’s victory, Pittsburgh would have faced the ugly prospect of heading into the enemy’s building down 2-0 in the series.
That’s bad enough, but with Anton Stralman back playing and Sportsnet’s Chris Joh ...
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Article written by Jonathan Willis
Sidney Crosby’s Superstar Moment Comes at Perfect Time for Penguins in OT Win
May 16th, 2016 by Jonathan Willis Leave a reply »
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