Canadiens Win Over Penguins in a Shootout, Rangers Holdoff the Blackhawks

After a three-week layoff from NHL play, many players are still a little rusty and on Thursday night it showed, first in the Pittsburgh Penguins  (40-15-4) vs. the Montreal Canadiens (33-21-7) game. The Canadiens prevailed with a 6-5 shootout win and under a backup goalie.

The two teams battled it throughout the game. After two periods, they were tied at 3 and then in the third period, both of them scored twice, forcing the game into overtime.

Peter Budaj

Pinch hitting for the injured Carey Price for a second straight game, Peter Budaj held off James Neal, Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin’s in the shootout while David Desharnais scored the winning Canadiens goal.

While he got the win for his team by stopping the Penguins, Budaj wasn’t all-around pleased and said of the game via the Associated Press, “I would like to have some goals back, but we scored five goals against Pittsburgh. We have to learn from the mistakes we made. We have to keep going and getting better.”

For the night, Budaj stopped 27 shots. Teammate Daniel Briere got two goals while Max Pacioretty got his 27th goal for the year along with Brendan Gallagher (goal No. 15), Alexei Emelin (No.2) each contributing goals.

As for the Penguins, it was an all-team effort as Sidney Crosby scored goal No. 29 for the season with an assist. He remains as the league’s leader with his 80 points. Neal scored goal No. 21 (300th career point) with an assist, while Olli Maatta scored one and an assist while Brandon Sutter and Deryk Engelland scored goals as well with Engelland getting a fifth goal–a career high.

Jussi Jokinen grabbed career point No. 400.

With the loss, the Penguins have now seen their second consecutive one. Thursday’s game represented their first one back on the ice since the break ended. They’ll have Friday off and will then play the Chicago Blackhawks (35-12-14) outside at Soldier Field on Saturday night.

The Penguins sit in the first spot for the Metropolitan Division and have 6/1 odds, similar to the Blackhawks, to win the 2014 Stanley Cup.

The Canadiens will play the Toronto Maple Leafs (32-22-7) on Saturday and have 33/1 odds to win this year’s Stanley Cup.

Also on Thursday and showing some rust also, the Blackhawks returned to the ice and lost to the New York Rangers (33-24-3), 2-1.

The Rangers found themselves in the lead for most of the game as it took Chicago until almost 11 seconds remaining in the game to finally score. This wasn’t enough as the game was almost tied up thanks to Patrick Kane attempting to quickly score a much-needed second goal but he was denied by the Rangers’ backup goalie, Cam Talbot.

Cam Talbot

Similar to the Canadiens, Talbot is pinch hitting for his starting goalie, Henrik Lundqvist, who also got injured in the Olympics. For the night, Talbot had 31 saves. He said of the game via the Associated Press, “To come out and beat the defending champs coming off a break like that is a good measuring stick for us. We know when we play our best hockey we can beat anyone.”

This comes as the Blackhawks entered the game as the league’s best with its 202 goals and 3.37 goals-per-game average for this season. They almost suffered their second straight shutout after going without one in 59 games. In their last game on Feb. 7, they lost 2-0 to the Phoenix Coyotes (27-21-11).

On Thursday, goalie Corey Crawford had 22 saves while Peter Regin got the sole score.

Looking ahead, the Rangers will play the Philadelphia Flyers (30-24-6) on Saturday. New York sits at 20/1 to win the 2014 Stanley Cup.

On Friday, there’s San Jose (-175, 5 o/u) at Buffalo, Phoenix at Colorado (-148 5.5 o/u), Minnesota at Vancouver (-150, 5 o/u) and St. Louis at Anaheim (-117, 5.5 o/u).