The Sharks bounced back big time to get their first win of their current road trip and head into their All-Star break on a high note, defeating the Pittsburgh Penguins 6-4.
This felt amazing, relieving, and refreshing, especially after the collapse against the Hurricanes in the previous game. The Sharks struck first early in the first period on Mikey Eyssimont's second goal in two games, who has been looking like a great waiver-wire pickup lately. Logan Couture and Marc-Eduoard Vlasic collected the assists on the first goal. Later on in the first frame, the Pens tied the game at one and went ahead 2-1 on two different power play chances, with the first one by Evgeni Malkin and the second one by Sidney Crosby. Near the end of the first period, the Sharks knotted it up at two after Erik Karlsson tipped in a pass from Alexander Barabanov. This is EK65's 16th goal of the year, with Steven Lorentz recording the secondary assist on that equalizer.
Team Teal went back on top on Noah Gregor's third goal of the season, with Logan Couture recording his second assist of the game on the go-ahead goal. About three minutes later, Jonah Gadjovich and Marcus Pettersson dropped the gloves and were involved in a real hockey fight. During the later half of the second period, Ryan Poehling evened it up at three for the Pens while they were shorthanded. The Sharks answered back with Alexander Barabanov scoring his seventh goal of the season from Logan Couture and Matt Benning to go up 4-3 through two periods of play.
Around the ten-minute mark of the third period, Evgeni Malkin scored his second goal of the game to tie things at four. About five and a half minutes later, Logan Couture scores the go-ahead game-winner from Alexander Barabanov and Marc-Eduoard Vlasic to make it 5-4. Still late in the third period, Jason Zucker crunched Nico Sturm into the boards, which shook up Sturm enough to to where he was hurt and had trouble getting off the ice. In addition, the refs missed that dangerous hit into the boards by Zucker, which went unnoticed. That particular incident is usually penalized nine times out of ten and no call was made by the officials, which was ridiculous. Anyway, with ten seconds remaining, Logan Couture added an empty-netter for his second goal of the game to extend the Sharks' lead to two, capping off his first five-point performance of his career. In addition, Erik Karlsson tallied his 50th helper of the season on the empty-netter by Captain Clutchure.
Not only was Couture's five-point performance a huge factor in the Sharks overcoming the Penguins in Pittsburgh, Kaapo Kahkonen was another big reason for their improbable win, recording 37 saves. Kevin Labanc and Scott Harrington were healthy scratches in this game, with David Quinn saying during the postgame press conference that Labanc's healthy scratches were performance-related more than anything.
I initially didn't think this Sharks team had much of a chance against the Penguins after their epic collapse in Raleigh the previous night, but I'm thrilled that Team Teal overcame all odds and finally got a win on this tough road trip to snap their four-game skid. San Jose as a team will be off for ten days before they hit the road again for three more games, starting in Tampa against the Lightning on Tuesday, February 7 at 4 pm PT. In addition, Erik Karlsson will be heading to South Florida to represent the Sharks in this year's NHL All-Star festivities this Friday and Saturday. As in year's past, I will recap the skills competition and All-Star game from the Sharks' perspective once those events have been completed this coming weekend, so be on the lookout for that post soon.
Sources: NBC Sports Bay Area/California, NHL App
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