Penguins Blitz Oilers Early, Hang on for Dear Life (and 5-3 Win)
Who were those guys clad in black-and-gold at PPG Paints Arena last night? And, more important, how do we get them to come back?
For one brilliant period at least, our present-day Penguins channeled the Stanley Cup champions of yore. We completely throttled the visiting Oilers, ringing up four…count ‘em four…first-period goals!
Rickard Rakell broke the scoring ice just 3:19 into the fray with his 21st goal of the campaign, followed in relatively short order by Bryan Rust (7:22) and big Kevin Hayes (9:46). In the process, making Oilers goalie Stuart Skinner resemble a 6’4” hunk of Swiss cheese.
When the Deutschland Dangler, Leon Draisaitl, broke through against Alex Nedeljkovic at 12:33, I thought, “Here come the Oilers.” But nope, at least not yet. We rolled up our sleeves and went right back at ‘em, with Drew O’Connor cashing in 68 seconds later to restore our three-goal edge.
A shame we couldn’t bottle whatever mojo we had going in the first 20 minutes, because it was pretty much all Oilers after the first intermission.