NHL: Sidney Crosby scores in overtime and Pittsburgh closes a 4-goal deficit

Sidney Crosby played the hero with a power play in overtime, helping the Pittsburgh Penguins to an unexpected 5-4 victory over the Columbus Blue Jackets on Tuesday.

Trailing 4-0 after 22 minutes, the Penguins are rolling up their sleeves against the worst team in the NHL overall.

It was only the third comeback of four Pittman Arena goals this season, after those scored by Vancouver (December 5) and Detroit (Detroit December 28).

Jason Zucker scored a double, while Evgeni Malkin had three assists, helping to give the Pens two valuable playoff points.

The Columbus Blue Jackets stormed the PPG Paints Arena and scored three goals in the first half of the first period.

After being down three times in the first 10 minutes of play, Tristan Jarry completed the first half, before handing the cage to Casey Desmith after conceding Jackett’s fourth goal, 2:37 midway through the first period.

Emil Bemstrom, Lynn Pedersen, Patrick Lynn and Liam Foddy hit the mark on a checking account.

Halfway through the game, Zucker gave Pittsburgh life, scoring his 20th goal of the campaign.

Elvis Merzlekins started the game in the net for Columbus (21-37-6). He stopped all seven shots he faced but was forced to make room for Michael Hutchinson, as the Latvian goalkeeper battled a virus.

Hutchinson did what he could against straight line bombardment facing 40 rounds in 42 minutes on the job.

On Zucker’s first goal, Alex Nylander collected his first point as a member of the Penguins, and his first NHL point since March 2020.

Crosby offered to win his club by shooting once when his partner was always, Malkin. It was his 28th goal in this campaign.

Jake Guentzel also moved the ropes, as did Danton Heinen — his goal tied it 4-4 at 3:59 of the final period — to help Pittsburgh fans go home with a smile.

Austin Matthews saves the Maple Leafs

Auston Matthews’ 29th goal of the season on a power play with less than three minutes left gave the Toronto Maple Leafs a 4-3 victory over the New Jersey Devils.

The Leafs trailed 3-2 until Michael Ponting tied the odds at 3-3 at 15:10 of the final period with his 20th of the season.

Kaley Jarnkrock put the Torontonians ahead at 7:30 of the second period.

Mitch Marner also scored a shortstop for the Maple Leafs. It was the seventh time in his career that he had hit the target with his team’s shortstop.

William Nylander caught two passes.

In the loss, Eric Hola scored his seventh and eighth goals of the season as well as getting an assist. The Devils’ other target belonged to Ondrej Palat, who was also a partner in both of his goals.

With the help of a balat goal, Dawson-Mercer became just the third player in Devils history to score at least a point in a 10th straight game before the age of 22. He’s just one game away from equaling Brendan Shanahan’s mark.

The Flames enjoyed their second life

Nazim Kadri and Tyler Toffoli scored in the shootout, and Jakob Markström shone with a 40-volley in a 1-0 win over the Minnesota Wild.

Toffoli, who lifted his club to a dramatic victory in Dallas the day before, hit the target in the fourth, while Minnesota shooter Matt Boldy lacked accuracy.

The loss was even more bitter for the Wild after they scored what they thought was the game-winning goal, captain Jared Spurgeon, with 1:33 left in overtime.

Spurgeon fumbled Markstrom on a Ryan Hartmann running back, but the Flames blocked the line that led to the goal, and the officials ruled that offside had occurred.

Markstrom, who led the NHL with nine shutouts in 2021-22, had his first game of the year in his 45th game.

Countryman Philip Gustafsson had nothing to be ashamed of at the other end of the ice, stopping all 26 of the Albertans’ shots after 65 minutes of play.

Bobrovsky climbs the ladder of panthers. Tkachuk was injured

Goalkeeper Sergey Bobrovsky made 30 saves for his 101st win as the Florida Panthers beat the Vegas Golden Knights 2-1.

Panthers forward Matthew Tkachuk went into the locker room about six minutes before the end of the third period with a lower-body injury after blocking a shot.

Bobrovsky joins Thomas Faucon for third in franchise history in wins. Quebecer Roberto Luongo leads the list with 230 wins.

Ryan Lomberg opened the scoring for the Panthers at 4:25 of the second period with his ninth touchdown of the season.

Alexander Barkov added to the Florida team (32-27-6) with his 17th goal, thanks to assists from Anthony Duclair and Nick Cousins.

Shea Theodore gave Vegas hope with his eighth goal, scored on a power play, but his team was unable to close the gap after that.

The Cypress misfortunes continue

Hudson Fashing gave the New York Islanders the victory with his fourth goal of the season in a 3-2 victory over the Buffalo Sabers.

The Sabers have lost four of their last five games while the Islanders have gone 5-1-1 in their last seven games.

Fasching deflected a Josh Bailey shot at 7:37 of the third period. Otto Koevola also collected an assist on this goal which was confirmed after a video replay.

Former Montreal Canadiens defender Alexander Romanov assisted on two of the Islanders’ three goals.

The Russian was complicit in the targets of Casey Cyzikas and Josh Bailey

For the Sabers, Dylan Cozens hit 25 goals. Kyle Okposo scored the other goal in the loss. This was Okposu’s first goal in their last 22 matches. We had to go back to January 14th to witness his final goal.

Ilya Sorokin made 22 saves in the win. Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen hits 36 backhands.

Golden Knights goaltender Adin Hill allowed two goals on 42 shots.

The Wolves are having fun in front of Binnington

The Arizona Coyotes manhandled Jordan Bennington to defeat the St. Louis Blues 6-2.

The Blues goalkeeper allowed six goals on 27 shots in this game. In contrast, Coyotes goaltender Karel Vemelka made 40 saves for this game.

The Blues remained in the game until the middle of the third period. Pavel Bukhnevich scored his second goal of the match, his 20th^H In order to get close to the Blues on points with a deficit of 3 to 2.

The wolves did not panic, and came back stronger. Travis Boyd, Clayton Keeler, and Lawson Krause all hit the red light to help Arizona snap a three-game losing streak.

Keeler had a goal and two assists in the game. Boyd found the back of the net on two occasions.