The Pittsburgh Penguins fought long and hard for two points, but they got the win in the end.

With the holiday break right around the corner, the Pittsburgh Penguins had a big test ahead of them against a team they’ve failed to get the upper hand on in their last five meetings.

The Penguins are still a handful of points out of playoff positioning and needed to come up big as they played host to the Carolina Hurricanes.

Both teams haven’t been overly proud of their 2023-24 season, but the Hurricanes are at least sitting in much better position.

Alex Nedeljkovic was given his second straight start between the pipes for the Penguins as Mike Sullivan said it seemed like the right choice for the contest.

First Period

It took a bit for both teams to find the gas pedal on offense, with the Penguins going the opening handful of minutes with a only a pair of shots on goal.

The Penguins did find the back of the net first from an unreal deflection by Sidney Crosby.

Rickard Rakell is still looking for his first goal of the season but opened the chance for Crosby to bank yet another highlight reel goal for his career.

Aside from that goal, it was both teams defense that made the most impact on the opening frame.

The Penguins and Hurricanes combined for nine shots through the opening 20 minutes, with the Penguins picking up five of them.

Second Period

Defense continued to be the name of the game into the second period with neither team creating much offense well past the midway point of the frame.

The Hurricanes managed a couple of huge opportunities with extended zone time and got a bounce to go their way after some great persistence.

A rebound shot deflected off Kris Letang’s skate and slowly slid past Nedeljkovic who was doing all he could with the Hurricanes’ pressure.

The Penguins picked up three power play opportunities over the course of the period but failed to come up on the positive end of any of them.

Through two periods, the score was tied at one goal each and the Penguins were 0-4 on man advantage opportunities.

Third Period

With a tie game and important standings points on the line, this shaped up to be one of the most crucial periods on the season for the Penguins.

Once again, defenses continued to carry all of the momentum as no pucks beat netminders through a good portion of the period.

Erik Karlsson took a late penalty to give the Hurricanes a chance at a late lead.

The Penguins managed to kill off the Hurricanes opportunity with just under three minutes left in regulation.

No one made noise in the closing minutes, forcing these two Metropolitan teams to share at least a point.

Overtime/Shootout

With the extra point up for grabs, the Penguins and Hurricanes went to overtime guaranteed yet another game to be separated by just one goal.

It was a wacky and wild overtime period that lasted deep past the halfway point.

The Penguins gained a power play opportunity with 1:14 remaining and their fifth man advantage chance of the contest.

Unable to capitalize yet again, even after hitting the post, the Penguins and Hurricanes went to a shootout.

The Penguins were able to wrap the shootout in three rounds rather than 12 this time around for a huge win.

Crosby picked up the lone shootout tally while Nedeljkovic made all of the stops.

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