The Pittsburgh Penguins need someone to step up in the absence of Evgeni Malkin; that production came from an unlikely source Sunday when rookie Conor Sheary had two goals in a 5-3 win against the New York Rangers at Madison Square Garden.
Malkin will miss 6-8 weeks because of an upper-body injury, and Sheary did his best impression of the all-star center. Sheary, who had three goals and five points in 29 games, scored twice in the second period for Pittsburgh, which blew three-one goal leads before holding on for the win.
Matt Cullen scored the go-ahead goal at 11:09 of the third period and goalie Marc-Andre Fleury finished with 28 saves as the Penguins maintained their hold on one of the wild cards into the Stanley Cup Playoffs from the Eastern Conference. Sheary gave them a 2-1 lead when he tipped in a shot from Justin Schultz at 7:30, but the lead didn't last long. Rangers center Derick Brassard who did not play Saturday because of the flu, scored on the power play to tie the game 2-2 at 8:59. Sheary broke the tie again at 15:55 on a nice passing play with linemates Eric Fehr and Tom Kuhnhackl to give the Penguins a 3-2 lead.
Cullen put the Penguins in front for good with a bit of puck luck. He was behind the net and slipped, but threw the puck in front where it hit off Rangers defenseman Marc Staal's skate and went past Henrik Lundqvist, who made 28 saves. Sidney Crosby scored his 29th goal, an empty-netter with 38 seconds remaining.
Patric Hornqvist opened the scoring for the Penguins on a power play at 11:56 of the first period before the Rangers tied the game 1-1 at 18:06 when Derek Stepan made a nice pass to Chris Kreider at the side of the net. Kreider tapped the puck past Fleury.
New York outshot Pittsburgh 19-13 in the first period but had eight shots in the final two periods. Ryan McDonagh scored on a wraparound at 5:04 of the third period to tie the game for the third time, at 3-3. Less than a minute later, Rick Nash had a chance to give the Rangers their first lead of the game on a breakaway but was stopped by Fleury.
The Rangers, who lost 3-2 in overtime Saturday to the Detroit Red Wings, hadn't dropped back-to-back games since Dec. 18-20. Former Pens forward Tanner Glass missed the game with an upper-body injury.
The people of New York showed their true colors once again, booing Sidney Crosby as he scored an empty-netter, and as if being sore losers wasn't bad enough took it to new levels as the game ended. Verbal insults were hurled at innocent Penguins fans, for having the bare-faced cheek to wear a Pittsburgh jersey in the Madison Square Garden dump. I mean how dare you go and support your team, and then how dare a visiting team go and beat the Rangers, you know that team that has a divine right to win the Stanley Cup each year, even though they have claimed just one since 1940 when there were only five other teams to beat.
Pens Quotes
Conor Sheary: "We need a lot of guys to get some secondary scoring and to get some more minutes when a guy like [Malkin] goes down. Obviously it's unfortunate for a team as a whole losing a player like that, but it's good for younger guys and guys who don't get that many minutes."Mike Sullivan: "[Sheary] is a terrific kid. He goes about his business, he works hard, he comes to the rink and does as he's told, and it's just great to see a kid like that get rewarded. He's a good hockey player."
Matt Cullen: "We got on the puck and were kind of able to possess the puck down low and I kind of got tripped up front and tried to make a play out front and sometimes you get those lucky bounces. You will take every one."
"That's kind of the playoff mindset. … No one's going away at this point in the season. You have to keep your foot on the gas. I was really proud of the guys the way we battled, especially with losing [Malkin]. That's a big response for us"
Other Results
Tampa Bay @ Columbus 4-0
Toronto @ Detroit 1-0
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