After the Washington Capitals scored early, the Pittsburgh Penguins scored often to stun their rivals with another comeback.
Patric Hornqvist, Sidney Crosby and Jake Guentzel scored in a span of 4:49 to help Pittsburgh erase a two-goal deficit in the third period and the Penguins beat Washington 3-2 on Thursday night in the Game. 1 of the second round series.
Without showing panic by allowing a goal to Evgeny Kuznetsov in the 17 seconds of the game and another to Alex Ovechkin at 28 seconds of the third period, the consecutive defending champions of the Stanley Cup took another advantage of the series typical of the penguins.
Playing without injured strikers Evgeni Malkin and Carl Hagelin, Pittsburgh naturally fed on Crosby, who had a goal and an assist.
"Since Sid, he led the way for us and he's right in the lineup," said Guentzel, who had one goal and two assists and leads the playoffs with 16 points. "You can not go down, there will be ups and downs throughout the series, you have to keep going until the end and we're happy to get three and end up winning the game."
Murray denied Michal Kempny point-blank and took the record from Devante Smith-Pelly, who was charging, and missed no chance to give the penguins the impressive height when they needed it.
"I thought he was locked up all night," coach Mike Sullivan said. "He made some great saves for us, especially when they were pushing for the stretch there, when you get that kind of saves, it's easy to play with some confidence in front of him."
Murray could not predict a furious return, but he was not surprised either. Not after Pittsburgh has won nine consecutive playoff series dating back to 2016, including two against these capitals.
"There will be good things that happen and there will be bad things that happen," Murray said. "It's about how you respond, we did a good job with that."
"Obviously, some things we would like to work on," said Holtby, who stopped the 17 shots in two periods before allowing three against eight in the third. "At the same time, their goals they scored were a kind of strange plays, especially the last one, it was one of those that is just a strange rebound."
Washington blew a two-goal lead for the fourth time in seven games in these playoffs, but the players felt they handled this better than the situations in the first round against Columbus.
"Those three innings, they score," said Kuznetsov, whose goal was the second fastest in the history of the Major League playoffs. "I feel they had momentum, and then scored again and again."
Despite the play, a handful of errors was enough to put the Penguins in Game 2 on Sunday afternoon. Sullivan already sees opportunities to reduce his chances, and his players think they can improve as the series progresses.
"It's a game, we did some good things," Crosby said. "I think in any playoff series, it's about improving with every game."
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