Penguins/Toronto Recap: Welp, that one got away. Leafs roll in Pittsburgh

Pregame

The Penguins use the same skaters from last night and flip goalies, Arturs Silovs is up.

The visiting Maple Leafs bring this lineup and a ton of fans to Pittsburgh for this game.

First period

Toronto strikes first, a bad bounce for the Penguins works out for Oliver Ekman-Larsson, who regains control of the puck and fires it home on their first shot 6:46 into the game. 1-0.

Pittsburgh gets the first power play of the night and the first power play goal soon after. Ben Kindel nets his sixth goal of the season on a pretty baseball swing out of mid-air.

The Leafs get the lead back quickly, nice passing play from William Nylander to Easton Cowan for the quick shot, and a lot of black jerseys lost in place or just standing around watching. 2-1.

Pittsburgh gets another power play but can’t score. Sidney Crosby got a few good looks and was pushing but couldn’t quite get it there.

Ekman-Larsson continues his good period by feeling Connor Dewar’s stick on him and clamping down on it to draw a power play for Toronto. They are unable to score on it.

Shots are 10-7 PIT in the opening period. Goalie Dennis Hildeby did a good job for the visitors.

Second period

Toronto keeps pushing and widens their lead early in the second. Bobby McMann is there to tip in a Morgan Rielly effort a little in the sequence after the nightly Ryan Graves costly bumble. 3-1.

The Maple Leafs then go on to end Arturs Silovs night very early. Dakota Joshua makes a turning low shot that Silovs is beaten by. Tristan Jarry is put into the game, Silovs takes out his frustrations by slamming his stick in the hallway leading back to the room. 4-1 TML.

The hits keep coming for the Pens, Parker Wotherspoon gets a penalty called on himself for ripping the helmet off an opponent in a scrum. Jarry makes a few saves until Max Domi makes a pass from behind the net for Nic Roy to add on another. 5-1.

The bottom dropped out that period, Toronto in coast mode gave up some offensive zone time to the Pens later on, resulting in a 10-8 shot advantage for Pittsburgh. The Leafs got the only goals of the period, three of them to take the game out of competitive territory.

Third period

The Pens get one back 4:37 into the period. Hayes gets the puck down low to Sidney Crosby, and the captain is able to swipe his 16th goal of the season from in close. 5-2 game.

Any faint hopes of another third comeback for the Pens disappears quickly. Hildeby makes a great save on Evgeni Malkin and a few minutes later Auston Matthews curls the puck in to change the angle and showcases his wicked release to set the score at 6-2.

Nic Robertson adds another, sure why not. 7-2.

Evgeni Malkin steps into Scott Laughton, they come together after the whistle for some punches and anger, both taking penalties, otherwise the game slips away to 0:00 without any further excitement.

Some thoughts

• Not the first time there’s been a strong showing of Toronto fans at a Penguin game, this one felt even more than normal. The Bills playing in town tomorrow provided a number of reasons to make a trip down.

• It’s debatable if he’s even doing anything wrong but it sure is annoying to see Kevin Hayes coasting around on both first period goals against. And it’s not for a lack of intention and effort, just that he shouldn’t be on the top line playing tough competition. The Crosby-Rust line has been poor defensively for years, it sure isn’t going to be any better with a non-entity like Hayes out there with them.

• He’s not the only one. Anthony Mantha hasn’t scored a goal in 20 days and has three points in 12 games in November. The only time Mantha was noticeable all night was when Evgeni Malkin put a puck on Mantha’s stick right in front of the net. It rolled off harmlessly. It happens sometimes, it happens too much to Mantha these days.

• Kindel scoring out of mid-air was a reminder of how skilled and talented are players have become. It’s similar to defenders knocking pucks that are attempted dump ins out of mid-air. 15-20 years ago only a few players could score out of mid-air and Nicklas Lidstrom was about the only player to consistently be able to knock it down defensively. Now it’s common place. Of course, you won’t see the Hayes/Mantha types doing that across the board but it’s barely notable compared to what it was. Kinda like how it’s (somewhat jokingly) said that 40-50 years ago some players could barely skate backwards, the evolution of the game is constant like that.

• Silovs wasn’t great on that last goal and the 4 goals on 14 shot line will look bad on paper but I wasn’t too down on his game. Couldn’t keep the puck out of the net, always a problem, not a ton he could have been expected to do differently to me. Bad bounces, deflections in front, turnovers in bad spots; tough night for a goalie. It is the second straight game that Silovs has been pulled, after starting out so strong to begin this season, the figurative bloom is starting to come off the rose there for one reason or another as of late.

• If you’re looking for a silver lining, Crosby recorded two points and passed the home point total of Mario Lemieux. The current captain is now down to single digits (1714 to 1723) to tying Lemieux’s overall point total. Crosby’s goal stood as the 641st of his career, clearing Dave Andreychuk for 15th all-time.

The Pens will hit the road and meet their rivals in Philadelphia on Monday night for their next game. They’ll do best to forget this one happened, or better yet make some badly needed adjustments where they can and move on.