Evgeni Malkin leads Pittsburgh Penguins to overtime victory against Los Angeles Kings -NHL Preseason
Kansas City, Missouri, finally got what it wanted for a long time, well not exactly but they still had the chance to witness a National Hockey League (NHL) game, as Pittsburgh Penguins defeated Los Angeles Kings, 3-2, in overtime at the overcrowded Sprint
Center on Tuesday, September 27.
Over 17,000 fans showed up to witness the matchup even though the city does not have its own NHL franchise, but the sprint arena is NHL-ready, which could mean either a relocation or new team creation sometime soon.
“These are all franchises within the footprint of an NHL team, should we ever be lucky enough to get one”, Paul McGannon, president of NHL21 told the Kansas City Star. “We’re very excited about the scope and the spread of these sales”.
Having one of their star players, Evgeni Malkin, back on the line-up, Pittsburgh continued its winning streak by taking their fourth straight matchup, but it could be termed as their hardest challenge yet faced in the preseason.
Before the matchup, both teams anticipated an intense competition since they only face-off against each other only once a year due to the difference in conference and distance from city to city.
“We’re playing one of the premier teams in the game, too”, said Kings coach, Terry Murray. “The fact they’re coming in with a good lineup, it’s in the middle of camp and everybody is starting to move some of their younger players to the minors, we’re looking
forward to seeing how our remaining players in camp compete”.
Jarret Stoll took the lead for Los Angeles during the first 20 minutes which did not have any penalties.
The second period remained dry with Kings’ Jordan Nolan giving the only penalty of the period for cross checking.
Pittsburgh answered back as Deryk Engelland and Chris Kunitz scored back-to-back during the second period and took the lead before it reached halfway. Luckily LA was able to get back into the matchup with a power play goal by Alec Martinez with less than
seven minutes remaining.
Both teams failed to take the lead during the final period of regulation, but it was Malkin who scored Pittsburgh’s first shootout goal followed by Matt Niskanen to take the match.
Los Angeles Kings will face-off against Colorado Avalanche on Wednesday while Pittsburgh is up against Chicago Blackhawks on Friday.
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