Fleury finished with 27 saves.
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“We didn’t want to give them (Crosby and Malkin) any confidence in that game”, Pacioretty said. “We’ll have more practice time to go over that and focus on it a little bit more, and I’m sure we’ll be fine”. “We know we have a good team….”
There wasn’t an assist on Kessel’s goal, so the team has one point. The Penguins have just three goals through nine periods, their slowest offensive start since 2003/04. Montreal is 3-0. “If your desperation and urgency isn’t there, then there’s a problem”. In all likelihood, this means he’ll be the starting goalie against the Canadiens later in the evening. Fleischmann ended it by easily slipping a pass from Desharnais by Fleury.
“It’s kind of just a desperation play”, Price said. “You still have to find ways or adjust or find rebounds or bury the chances we do [get]”.
“I always think it’s a process in the beginning of the year when you have several new players”, Penguins coach Mike Johnston said Monday.
The Penguins power play, which provided one of their greatest areas of concern late last season, has been equally inefficient to start this season.
Only 1:26 later, Kris Letang tied the game again, beating Price with a floater over the glove.
Porter and Dumoulin stuck out for the Penguins, Porter creating a few scoring chances and Dumoulin looking confident skating with the puck and making passes, though still rushed the play at times. “I couldn’t be more impressed with the way we handled that tonight, but we’re on to the next one”. 888 mark over a 2-4-2 span. Lehtonen made his season debut after backing up Antti Niemi in the first two games.
“It feels like I score here a lot of times”, Fleischmann said.
McDavid struggled in the faceoff circle again, winning just 3-of-9 to put him at 8-of-33 for the season.
Canadiens goalie Carey Price, 2-4-2 in his previous eight against Pittsburgh, made 31 saves in his third win of the season – his best after a back door Crosby to Malkin pass set up an excellent scoring chance.
The Sharks improved to 3-0-0 and have outscored their opponents 12-1. The Capitals sent out a note on Twitter about 35 minutes before the game saying the Russian star would not play.
NEWARK, N.J. – Pekka Rinne turned aside 22 shots and Roman Josi scored two goals, leading Nashville over New Jersey at the Prudential Center.
For a third consecutive game, the Penguins surrendered the first goal. They also won three straight to start last season but haven’t taken their first four since 1977-78 on their way to a third of four straight Stanley Cups. He has allowed only two goals so far, and gave much of the credit to his defensemen.
The Canadiens took the game’s first lead at 5:46: of the first period.
It was Letang’s first goal since March 19.
Jaromir Jagr assisted on Barkov’s goal for his 1,809th career point.
NEW YORK – Michael Hutchinson made 40 saves – including 20 in the second period – as Winnipeg defeated the New York Rangers at Madison Square Garden. The Rangers dropped to 3-1-0.
Ryan Callahan scored for Tampa Bay and Ben Bishop stopped 21 shots. The Lightning are 3-1-0.
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Penguins coach Mike Johnston was happy “about 80 percent of the time” the way Crosby (4 shots) and Malkin (1 shot) played as his team outshot Montreal 33-30, but “it’s been in and out….”
