Golden Knights Complete Kessel Run, Defeat Penguins by 12 Parsecs
What a difference a month makes. Back on December 1, our Penguins beat the Golden Knights in impressive fashion at PPG Paints Arena to trigger a seven-game winning streak. Seems like a lifetime ago, doesn’t it?
Our on-again, off-again Pens were mostly off, at least during the critical early phases of a dismal 5-2 to the Golden Knights in Sin City. Indeed, courtesy of our comatose start we were never really in the game. Old friend Phil Kessel struck just 1:52 into the opening frame, followed in fairly rapid succession by goals from Jack Eichel at 5:17 and Chandler Stephenson at 11:20.
Don’t know what was said by Mike Sullivan and the coaching staff during the first intermission, but it may have contained an expletive or three.
Whatever the source of motivation, the Pens outshot the Golden Knights 20-12 in the second period before yielding a late tally by Mark Stone to pretty much dump the last shovelful of dirt onto our coffin.
If you’re searching for positives, we did manage to win the third period, 2-1. Playing in his third game for the black and gold, Ty Smith notched his first of hopefully many goals for the Pens at 4:04 of the frame.