Penguins/Blackhawks Recap: Pens cruise to 5-0 win over hapless Chicago

The Penguins score a bunch and take an easy win over the Blackhawks

Pregame

The Penguins make a change in their lineup Blake Lizotte (lower body injury) is out for tonight which opens the door for Matt Nieto to play his first NHL game since late Febraury. Tristan Jarry gets back in the net.

First period

Fairly boring start to the game. Chicago’s Sam Rinzel puts a shot off the cross-bar that just barely stays out of the net, the Blackhawks start out as the better of the two teams – but that’s not saying much.

Out of no where the Penguins get the first power play of the game, not much happens with it.

Pittsburgh is the better team towards the end of the period. Ryan Graves hits the post.

Nieto drives hard to the net and gets impeded with 22 seconds to go to send the Pens to a second power play. Sidney Crosby wins the o-zone faceoff and the Pens sneak in a goal before intermission. It looks like Rickard Rakell passes out from the corner in a hurried manner and not the best positioned offering. But Crosby is able to hack at the puck while turning toward it just the same, and hey, it works to jump up high and beat the goaltender Spencer Knight. 1-0 with 15 seconds left.

Shots are 11-7 PIT. They’re lucky Rinzel didn’t score on them early, but otherwise it’s a deserved score based on the action so far.

Second period

Very interesting little changes in the lines, Ville Koivunen and Rutger McGroarty have traded spots. The immediate result is Koivunen sends Crosby in for a mini-breakaway 15 seconds into the second period with a great saucer pass. Knight makes the save on Crosby but it’s a cheeky start and new look.

It takes until the second shift for that new first line to score. Bryan Rust does a great job on the back pressure to pop up the stick of rookie Frank Nazar (gotta be hard on the puck, rook!) and win it back. Rust feeds Koivunen, who makes another great cross-ice pass, this time to Erik Karlsson. Karlsson wires in a shot for his 200th career goal and increase the score to 2-0 Pens.

Koivunen nearly records his first NHL goal with a baseball swing on a puck out of mid-air that had a lot of pepper on it. Great chance.

Everything is mostly going the Pens’ way but then Ryan Graves telegraphs a partner pass back around his own net that Tyler Bertuzzi easily intercepts, being as he’s right there and Graves didn’t have the pass open. Ryan Shea has to reach out and cross-check Bertuzzi down, leading to Chicago’s first power play of the night.

Jarry makes a few saves and Pittsburgh gets out of danger and into the break. Perhaps not so lucky was Rutger McGroarty, felled in the foot area by blocking a shot and leaving under duress.

Shots 21-14 overall, 2-0 lead. Not much but it’s something.

Third period

Connor Murphy relieves the pressure by knocking a puck out of mid-air and into the stands, drawing the automatic penalty for puck over glass in his d-zone. Pens power play does little with it but shortly after the penalty ends Kris Letang and Evgeni Malkin work a give-and-go and Letang makes a vintage move to find the space upstairs on Knight and snipe it in. 3-0 Pittsburgh.

Chicago has about folded in their tents and go down 4-0. Kevin Hayes puts a shot off Spencer Knight that clicks off his glove and then he can’t do anything about it.

Hayes adds one more for the road, faking and feinting if he’s going to go inside or outside of rookie Kevin Korchinski (gotta be tough on the body, rook!). The young defender gets out-wiled by the wily veteran and Danton Heinen makes a nice incoming pass for Hayes to pickle stab into the net for his second goal of the night. 5-0 Pens.

And that’s it for that, second shutout of the season for Tristan Jarry who might not have broken much of a sweat in this one.

Some thoughts

• Since the Pens have worn their alternate jerseys every Tuesday and exclusively on that date this season, this might be it for the ol’ Snoop Dogg jersey on the ice for a while, being as the team is hinting at new alternates for next season.
• Pretty nuts that Crosby has registered at least a point in 17 of his last 19 games, and 24 of the last 27.
• For the Bob Grove tweet o’ the night: this marks Crosby’s 120th first goal of a game, passing Teemu Selanne for fifth all time. You might have heard of the first four on the list: Ovechkin, Jagr, Howe and Brett Hull.
• While sticking with twitter, we saw today is the 2-year anniversary of Crosby hitting 1,500 points. Fast forward to today and he’s up to 1,683 after tonight. We all always try to bask in it and never lose sight of how amazing of a player he is, but my goodness, what a career.
• Great game for Koivunen. He’s had his moments over the previous four games to stand out in little flashes here and there but tonight was one where he looked comfortable and was able to make plays all over the ice a lot more consistently. The level of competition wasn’t sky high but it’s great to see him be able to settle in right before our eyes and figure out how to operate on an NHL rink. He’s proven to be a quick study, the progress he’s made has been visible and very impressive.
• A+++ idea to put Koivunen and Crosby together, by the way. Even though the internet is mainly for bemoaning perceived coaching incompetencies that lever was pulled at the right time.
• Speaking of internet bitching sessions, happy 200 goals to Erik Karlsson! He could well finish in the top-10 of defenders in scoring in the league this season. Stylistically he drives many crazy and his mistakes are unavoidable but that’s a big time number of goals for a blueliner.
• The NHL seems to love to have late-season PIT/CHI games, but we’re begging you: find a way to get one, if not both, of these games over with by January next season. Too much of a slog when both teams are buried.
• McGroarty did not play in the third period after leaving from blocking the shot in the foot area, so that stinks. Hate to see top players risk injury on the PK blocking shots but it’s sometimes unavoidable but never not annoying to see an important player get hurt on the PK from getting struck by a puck.

The Pens made that one look easy. Next up is a couple of days off and a trip to New Jersey for the final road game of the season on Friday night.