The Pittsburgh Penguins spotted the Vancouver Canucks three goals and still rolled to a nice victory.
PITTSBURGH - It was a far from ideal start for the Pittsburgh Penguins after giving up three goals on seven shots and forcing a goalie change.
Dustin Tokarski stepped in for Casey DeSmith to make his Penguins debut, but the team was ready to rally.
Evgeni Malkin snapped the power play’s lengthy goalless streak with a bomb on a 5-on-3 advantage before Sidney Crosby and Jason Zucker followed up with tallies of their own.
With the score tied at three, the first period came to an end; Penguins may have gone down by three in the opening minutes, but they looked to be carrying the momentum.
The Penguins ended the period by doubling up the Canucks in shots 20-10 and it never felt like they were out of it.
Afterall, the Canucks started the 2022-23 season 0-5-3 while blowing leads in five straight.
The second period was much more subdued on both ends of the ice, but the Penguins added to their lead by putting up two more, including another power play goal.
Malkin potted his second of the game on a 4-on-4 scenario after working some magic with Zucker on an odd man rush.
Later in the period, the power play continued to work their way back to normalcy with another goal that came with some more magic from Malkin.
Another bomb from Malkin was stopped by the Canucks’ goalie, but Rickard Rakell was the only player on the ice who knew where the puck was.
Rakell had a wide open net to work with and he didn’t miss to make it five unanswered goals from the Penguins.
The Canucks were able to nab a fourth goal on a huge bounce that Tokarski stopped, but his glove was fully in the net.
The Penguins capped off their comeback with a 5-4 victory and an impressive showing from Tokarski in relief.
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