Penguins/Red Wings Recap: Pens get clinical effort, win 4-1

Pregame

Same lineup for the Penguins with Stuart Skinner back in the net for this afternoon’s game.

The home Red Wings also keep very similar lines from the last time these teams met on Thursday, also opting to switch their goalies and give John Gibson a go.

First period

The Penguins keep it up with the hot starts, opening the scoring 3:44 in. Detroit turns the puck over in the middle of the ice, before you know it Sidney Crosby is going the other way on the rush. Crosby makes a cross-ice pass to Bryan Rust and a quick shot later eludes Gibson. 1-0 Pens.

It’s all Pittsburgh early, the Pens take a penalty but even then Connor Dewar leads a short-handed rush and then takes a high-stick to the chops to negate Detroit’s power play. The Red Wings get nary a shot for the first 13 minutes of the game.

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Ben Kindel catches Detroit in the middle of a change and makes a long stretch pass for Yegor Chinakhov. The newest Penguin makes no mistakes on the breakaway, snapping a hard, low shot by Gibson. 2-0 Pens.

Solid beginning of the game, the Pens are the faster team, they’re holding onto the puck and able to have a lot of success in the early going. Shots are 10-5 PIT, goals are 2-0.

Second period

Another good start for the Pens. Rust narrowly misses a wide open net for a glorious chance to add to the total. Pittsburgh stays in charge of the puck for the most part, Detroit only has one shot in the first 15 minutes of the second period. They score on their second. Rutger McGroarty’s shot misses the net and serves as a breakout for Alex DeBrincat. DeBrincat calls his own number and wires a great shot past Skinner. 2-1 game with 4:54 to go, which is startling that Detroit has remained so close on the scoreboard with how little they’ve been able to get going so far.

Tommy Novak opens the door for more by taking a penalty, DeBrincat rings a hard shot off the post, but they can come no closer.

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The second period played out a lot like the first, but the crowd and Red Wing team kinda realized for as little as they’ve done, they’re one shot away heading into the third.

Third period

The third is much like the earlier two periods. The Pens control the puck, when they don’t have it they cut off passing lanes and knock away almost everything away that Detroit tries to get going.

Detroit pulls the goalie, it doesn’t work out. Crosby chips the puck ahead for Rickard Rakell to skate into and salt the game away at 3-1.

Having nothing else to lose, the Red Wings pull Gibson again and the Pens add one more up on the final score. Dewar hits the open net from long-range. 4-1 game.

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Some thoughts

• Crosby and Rust are simply clinical right now. Six-game point streak for both of them as a result of combining for the first goal of the game, then they both figured into the empty net goal.

• In fact, clinical was how the team played all afternoon long. You never know which team will be sharp or not for a 12pm start, it was clear pretty early on that the Pens were the team that had their legs going early. The Red Wings never seemed to find theirs, ending up with only 12 shots on goal all game, tallying five in the first period, four in the second and three in the third. Detroit had a chance to get back in the game but they just didn’t have that much juice. It didn’t seem like the problem was just Detroit though, the Penguin players to a man were very sharp with and without the puck, dialed all the way in towards making a lot of great decisions all over the ice. It all added up, and impressively was on display for all 60 minutes.

• The second goal really showcased Kyle Dubas’s influence on the Penguins. Naturally, these days, that’s only going to increase. Still, Chinakhov scored as the new toy acquired in a trade to see if he can become a fairly decent-sized piece of the puzzle moving forward. Kindel made the stretch pass, being the first round pick of Dubas, also assisted by Wotherspoon, one of the smartest free agent signings from last summer. As time goes on the Dubas impact is only going to grow, that goal just encapsulated it nicely and stood out since it was Chinakhov’s first with the Pens.

• Very sharp finish by Chinakhov too, he didn’t mess around when the opportunity popped up out of almost nowhere by converting the goal with a nice shot. You can tell he has that goal scorer’s knack and dimension to finish on plays like that, which is a part of his calling card and statistical profile. It’ll be a while to see just how well Chinakhov blends into the team and if he can become something of a key piece, early returns have been reasonably encouraging so far with a goal like that in only his second game (and still, what, one regular practice session with the team that isn’t a game day skate or actual game).

• Even playing 5v6 with the empty net for the Red Wings late in the game was no problem for the Pens today. That’s not always the case for them, but every aspect of their game was clicking along so smoothly that they easily handled that too and tacked in a pair of goals.

• The amazing thing about the sport of hockey is how quickly a team can go from looking like they barely belong, losing and getting blown out like the Pens were the last week before Christmas (think about the matching 4-0 losses to Ottawa and Montreal, then the 6-3 defeat in Toronto)…Now, barely any time later, Pittsburgh is making a first-place team like Detroit look that way. One thing is for sure: the Christmas break came at an excellent time for the Penguins to get a clean reset with a couple days off the ice and move into the next segment of the season.

The Penguins probably won’t mind trying to stay in the groove and keeping things rolling, and lucky for them they’ll get that opportunity with a quick turnaround to play in Columbus tomorrow afternoon.