Ultimately, the Pittsburgh Penguins’ star players came through on Monday, while many of the Boston Bruins’ best watched on the sidelines.
Boston managed to stick with Pittsburgh even with key players like Zdeno Chara still injured, yet much like head coach Claude Julien has said, they just haven’t had much margin of error. Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin to generate Pittsburgh’s three goals, including this electrifying game-winner by Malkin:
This 3-2 overtime win gives Marc-Andre Fleury 300 career regular season victories. His agent Allan Walsh points out that he’s the third youngest goalie to hit the 300 mark.
With 300 career wins, comes a little shaving cream! Congratulations Fleury! pic.twitter.com/rd45mvglmI
— Pittsburgh Penguins (@penguins) November 25, 2014
Fleury on who showered him with shaving cream post-game: "I don't know, but when I find out, there's going to be some payback."
— Pittsburgh Penguins (@penguins) November 25, 2014
Crosby scored a goal and two assists while Malkin finished the night with two tallies. Kris Letang collected two helpers of his own and also helped trigger the overtime winner.
Letang blew past Marchand. Made the whole play happen.
— Josh Yohe (@JoshYohe_PGH) November 25, 2014
The Bruins deserve credit for hanging tough, including carrying the play for chunks of time, as you can see from this Natural Stat Trick graph:
The Bruins saw two goals get disallowed through the first 40 minutes of play. The bounces frequently didn’t go Boston’s way, even though they scored two goals in less than 30 seconds.
Claude Julien: "Our guys played hard right to the end. Unfortunately we didn't get that 2nd point that I thought we deserved" #BruinsTalk
— Joe Haggerty (@HackswithHaggs) November 25, 2014
The Bruins have now lost two games in a row. Their next game is against the Winnipeg Jets on Friday. After that, it’s a foreboding four-game road trip through the West.
Pittsburgh bounces back from two straight losses against the Islanders and will see the Toronto Maple Leafs on Wednesday.
The worst news for them was that Beau Bennett went down with an injury. He returned for a shift but it didn’t go well: