Pain in Pittsburgh. Avs Can't Finish Off Penguins in OT Loss

Nathan MacKinnon outdoes his idol, Cale Makar gets hit high and Avs cough up the extra point.

Jeanine Leech, Icon Sportswire...

Game 49
Penguins 2, Avalanche 1 (OT)
PPG Paints Arena | Pittsburgh, Pa.

Brutal.

That’s the word I’m using to describe that game. The Colorado Avalanche dominated play for a vast majority of Tuesday night’s game, but it was the Pittsburgh Penguins who came away with the win.

The score is reflective of the way the points in the standings were distributed as the Pens’ OT winner from Kris Letang gave them the second, while the Avs were unable to secure more than one goal and were left with just one point.

The point helps, though, as it moved the team into a tie for third in the Central standings with the Wild as both have 58 this season. But you know what is better than 58 points? 59 points.

Despite the result, Avs coach Jared Bednar emerged feeling upbeat:

“I liked our game tonight. I thought we checked hard,” Bednar said. “We were dangerous on the offensive side of it, and their goalie had a really good night.”

And Colorado had so many opportunities to secure that extra point as they were running away with the game in nearly every way possible. Except actually scoring goals, which, last time I checked, matters the most.

Name something you love as much as Nathan MacKinnon loves playing against Sidney Crosby. I doubt you can. That heightened level of play was evident from the get-go as Mack was all over the ice early, turning in one of his best and most complete games of the season. He blocked shots. He had a quality stick in the defensive zone. He stretched the defense in the neutral zone. He was fast. Then he scored a beautiful goal in which he took all four Penguins with him at some point in a journey around the offensive zone before firing home a beautiful wrist shot.

MacKinnon’s 14th goal of the season was the lone marker of the game until an errant centering feed from Evgeni Malkin bounced around the crease, low slot and Bryan Rust’s skate like a pinball before finally sliding into the back of the net with three minutes and 38 seconds showing on the game clock.

Overtime again. It seemed like there was a chance it would be over quickly, but replays showed that Pavel Francouz was able to pull the puck off the goal line a split second (and I do mean a split second) before the entirety of it crossed into white ice after a Crosby-Letang odd-man rush.