Battling for position atop the NHL's Eastern Conference, the Pittsburgh Penguins clashed with the Buffalo Sabres last night in a wild affair at the HSBC Arena in Buffalo, New York.
It took the Penguins 21 minutes and 28 seconds to jump to a 3-0 lead and chase Buffalo goaltender Ryan Miller from the net. It then took the Sabres a mere 18 minutes and nine seconds to strike four times and steal the win, 4-3.
"They had a lot of time to get themselves back in the hockey game and, unfortunately, we couldn't get that fourth one to put it away," said Penguins captain Sidney Crosby. "For the most part, we worked pretty hard and I thought we deserved better."
After being a healthy scratch two nights earlier in a 5-3 win over St. Louis, it was Drew Stafford who sparked the Sabre rally, notching a pair of goals two minutes and nine seconds apart in the second period. The first goal came on a penalty shot that was awarded after a goal-mouth scramble saw Penguin Jay McKee cover the puck in the crease.
"It was kind of a weird call - a weird situation," said Pittsburgh forward Jordan Staal of the penalty shot. "They definitely took off from there."
"It obviously changed momentum a little bit," said Penguin Maxime Talbot, "but I thought we battled hard after that too. We played a good hockey game."
Buffalo cut the deficit to two when Stafford picked up his own rebound and banked the puck past Marc-Andre Fleury, who finished the night with 20 saves.
"They got the penalty shot there and got another one before the end of the period and were right back into it," said Crosby. "That's what happens when you let teams hang around."
Less than eight minutes into the third, Stafford carried the puck into the visitor end and made a couple of nice moves to get around a pair of Pittsburgh defenders and feed a cross-crease pass to Paul Gaustad, who backhanded home his eighth of the season. Less than three minutes later, with Craig Adams serving a boarding penalty, Tim Connolly fed a pass from the corner to Jason Pominville in the slot, who wired a slap-shot past Fleury for the eventual game-winner.
"They know the way that they had to play and they weren't doing it in the first half of the game," said Bill Guerin, who netted Pittsburgh's second goal late in the first period. "They sure did pick it up in the second half."
The Penguins were seemingly well on their way to victory after first-period tallies by Staal and Guerin, followed by a Chris Kunitz goal early in the second. However, after letting in three goals on 11 shots, Miller was pulled in favour of Patrick Lalime, who denied the Penguins the rest of the way, finishing the night with 27 saves, including a huge poke-check on Crosby midway through the second.
"I thought Lalime played well when he was in and he took away a lot of our chances," said Staal. "We felt like we controlled a lot of the game - we had a lot of opportunities to score goals - just a couple of mistakes here and there that they capitalized on."
With the win, the Sabres currently sit two points back of the Washington Capitals for second place in the Eastern Conference standings. The Penguins meanwhile, missed a golden opportunity to move into a tie with the first-place New Jersey Devils. They will have a second chance tonight, however, as the two Atlantic division foes clash in Jersey. That is to say if the Capitals don't have something to say about it, as Ovechkin and company currently sit one point back of the Devils and will take on the Sharks tonight in San Jose.
"We have to erase this one pretty quickly," said Crosby. "I was pretty happy for the most part with our effort - it's just one of those games where they buried their opportunities and, unfortunately, we couldn't put ours in. But the way we played is more like the hockey we know […] we'll have to carry that over to [tonight against New Jersey]."
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