James Neal forces overtime Pittsburgh Penguins win 3-2 in shootout against New York Islanders
New York tried to keep Pittsburgh out of the net and maintain their lead to win the match, but the Penguins overpowered the Islanders on Thursday night, October 27, not only to comeback and force an overtime extension but to win, 3-2, in a shootout, at the sold-out CONSOL Energy Center in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States.
Fellow teammate, Chris Kunitz, continues to be amazed with Evgeni Malkin’s abilities to shoot and was certainly impressed with his performance last night.
"He's a game-changing player", Kunitz said of Malkin. "He can go out and beat someone 1-on-1 or 1-on-2. Any time you have that on a team, you believe that if you're only one or two goals down, you can always fight back and claw your way into it."
Islanders’ goalie, Evgeni Nabokov, nearly had stopped all 32 shots that were taken on his net, but in a last moment comeback by Pittsburgh, he let down his defences and fell short on two critical shots along with one in the shootout.
"It's mandatory", forward Matt Martin said. "You have a 2-0 lead in the third period, you've got to come out with a win. It's inexcusable to give up two goals and let them come back in overtime and win the game. We didn't have a lot of shots on net and still had a 2-0 lead”.
Frans Nielsen scored with one minute left to play in the opening period while Matt Martin scored 45 seconds into the third and final period of regulation to put the New York team ahead by a commanding 2-0 lead.
Pittsburgh made a quick comeback and secured another chance to win it as Chris Kunitz scored nearly a minute after Martin and James Neal potted his ninth of the season a few minutes later on their first added man advantage of the period set up by Kunitz.
Evgeni Malkin scored the only goal in the shootout decider, giving Pittsburgh their fifth consecutive win of the 2011-2012 National Hockey League (NHL) regular season and two straight over the Islanders.
Pittsburgh plays their next game against the Maple Leafs in Toronto on Saturday while San Jose Sharks pay a visit to the New York Islanders the same day.
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