Bryan Rust's goal gives Penguins more bang for the buck in win vs. Blue Jackets
The Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins are scheduled to be on the road Friday and Saturday to face the Cleveland Monsters at venerable Rocket Mortgage FieldHouse near the frosty shores of the Cuyahoga River.
It will be a showcase of two of the American Hockey League’s more prominent franchises.
For those reluctant to embark on the two-hour trek along Interstates 76, 80 and 480, their NHL affiliates offered an AHL-worthy display of entertainment at PPG Paints Arena on Thursday.
The Pittsburgh Penguins and Columbus Blue Jackets mucked and grinded through a competitive but tepid contest that resulted in a 1-0 overtime victory for the home team.
What the game lacked in ample offensive totals, it made up for in considerably expensive absences.
Penguins forward Evgeni Malkin missed the game because of an illness and was replaced in the lineup, but certainly not in terms of impact, by forward Joseph Blandisi who was recalled from Wilkes-Barre/Scranton for the fourth time this season. Thursday’s recall was under emergency conditions.
In addition to Malkin ($9.5 million salary cap hit) the Penguins were without the services of forwards Sidney Crosby ($8.7 million), Patric Hornqvist ($5.3 million), Nick Bjugstad ($4.1 million) and defenseman Brian Dumoulin ($4.1 million) because of various ailments. That equates to a combined salary cap hit of $31.7 million.
The Blue Jackets weren’t at full capacity either as they were missing $15,169,444 in represented salary cap hits. Forwards Brandon Dubinsky ($5.85 million), Emil Bemstrom ($925,000) and Kole Sherwood ($694,444) as well as defensemen Zach Werenski ($5 million) and Markus Nutivaara ($2.7 million) all were sidelined.
The end result was a showdown that presumably didn’t fill up much time on overnight repeats of the NHL Network’s highlight show.
A backhanded power-play goal by forward Bryan Rust at 3:02 of overtime secured victory. It was his 10th goal of the season.
Games like this don’t offer much to captivate the audience. But what about the participants? Are they exciting? Boring? Tedious? Nerve wracking?
“A little bit of all of those,” Rust said. “Anytime there isn’t a ton of offense or a ton of scoring chances, I think that can test your mental fortitude a little bit. But I think we did a really good job of kind of just staying even keeled and taking what the game gave us.”
The contest didn’t give much in the way of a burdensome workload to goaltender Tristan Jarry who made only 17 saves to record his third shutout in four games.
While the quantity wasn’t overtly taxing, the quality of chances were challenging in the third when he stopped six shots, including at least two breakaways.
He was quick to credit his teammates for his success.
“They limited the shots and gave me the easy ones from the outside,” Jarry said. “So it was a great job. We didn’t have many rebounds and we were able to get a lot of pucks out.”
The Penguins learned of Malkin’s illness in the morning and were forced to scramble their lines. The most notable change involved moving Jake Guentzel from left wing to center the top line with Rust on the right wing. Alex Galchenyuk began on the left wing but eventually gave way to Dominik Simon at the start of the third.
Guentzel, who lined up at center for a handful of games early in the 2017-18 season when injuries hampered that team’s depth in the middle, recorded a secondary assist and was in the black on faceoffs going 7 for 13 (54 percent).
“We discussed some of the options that we had but there weren’t a whole lot,” coach Mike Sullivan said. “Jake is such a smart player. He has the ability to adjust and adapt.”
In many ways, that pliantness is a trait which has steadily become the trademark of the 2019-20 Penguins.
Seth Rorabaugh is a TribLive reporter covering the Pittsburgh Penguins. A North Huntingdon native, he joined the Trib in 2019 and has covered the Penguins since 2007. He can be reached at srorabaugh@triblive.com.
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