Penguins hold on to lead this time, beat Maple Leafs

Entering Saturday, the Pittsburgh Penguins were in the midst of a skid in which they lost four of their previous five games.

Hardly a time to panic. But certainly not an occasion to rejoice.

How do they pull the nose up?

“Our team is at our best when we’re playing on our toes and we’re playing on top of teams and we’re trying to dictate the terms in that capacity,” Penguins coach Mike Sullivan said. “I think that’s the lesson learned or hopefully the lesson here moving forward. We can be better in that regard.”

The result was indeed better Saturday as the Penguins orchestrated a resolute 3-2 victory against the Toronto Maple Leafs at PPG Paints Arena. It snapped a modest two-game losing streak and leveled their record at 10-10-0.

It was a considerable rebound from an unappetizing 3-2 road loss to the Buffalo Sabres roughly 24 hours earlier. In that contest, the Penguins squandered a two-goal lead entering the third period.

On Saturday, the Penguins buttoned things down with a one-goal advantage entering the final frame. Over the final 20 minutes, they limited a potent Maple Leafs attack. While they allowed 12 shots, relatively few were of a high quality.

“We let (Friday) night slip,” said Penguins forward Noel Acciari, who had a hand in each of the Penguins’ final two goals Saturday. “We had to have a short memory there. … We knew we had our hands full (with the Maple Leafs). We needed to get back to our style of play.

“To be able to shut down in that third period was big for us.”

The Penguins did allow the opening period to resemble a pentathlon to some extent. The Maple Leafs got 12 of their 33 total shots in the first 20 minutes and emerged with 2-1 lead.

Maple Leafs forward Tyler Bertuzzi’s fifth goal of the 2023-24 campaign opened the scoring 3:59 into regulation.

After Acciari lost a faceoff in his own left circle to forward John Tavares, Maple Leafs forward William Nylander claimed the puck and then dealt a pass to defenseman Morgan Rielly, who slipped his way up the left wing wall and snapped a forehand pass to the cage. Tavares tipped the puck on net and was rejected by goaltender Tristan Jarry’s right leg. A rebound deflected to the right of the crease, where Bertuzzi chopped in an easy forehand shot by Jarry’s left skate. Penguins forward Matt Nieto was tardy in defending Bertuzzi on the sequence. Tavares and Rielly had assists.

Penguins forward Jake Guentzel responded only 28 seconds later with his seventh goal.

Taking a bank pass from linemate Drew O’Connor off the right wing boards on an offensive zone entry, Penguins forward Sidney Crosby dealt it back to O’Connor in the high slot. Hesitating for a moment to jam up Maple Leafs forward Mitch Marner, O’Connor fed a slick pass to the right of the crease, where an unimpeded Guentzel tapped in a forehand shot by rookie goaltender Joseph Woll’s left skate. O’Connor and Crosby claimed assists.

It was O’Connor’s first point since he was promoted to the top line in place of injured mainstay Bryan Rust.

“He pushes their (defensemen) back,” Crosby said of O’Connor. “You saw it on the goal. He made a great play to find (Guentzel) on the side of the net. His speed is probably his biggest strength.”

The Maple Leafs restored a lead, 2-1, at 7:48 of the opening frame via rookie forward Matthew Knies’ sixth goal.

Off a three-on-two rush into the offensive zone against Penguins defensemen Marcus Pettersson and Erik Karlsson, Maple Leafs forward Calle Jarnkrok chucked a wrister from the right wing to the far side of net that was kicked out by Jarry’s right leg. The ample rebound wound up in the slot, where Knies buried an immediate wrister. The lone assist went to Jarnkrok.

Acciari, a former Maple Leafs forward, tied the game, 2-2, with his second goal at 10:01 of the second period.

Under pressure from Nieto, Maple Leafs defenseman T.J. Brodie tried to rim a puck from his own end boards to the left wing wall for Maple Leafs forward Nicholas Robertson but lost it to a forechecking Acciari. Dragging the puck from the end boards to the left of the cage, Acciari roofed a wrister over Woll’s right shoulder on the near side and hit twine. There were no assists.

“It was a good exit from our (defensive) zone,” Acciari said. “(Linemate Jeff Carter) was able to get it chipped out of the zone. I was able to kind of pressure in their zone. It was a fortunate turnover. I got a stick on it and was able to pull it out of the corner. (Nieto) got a good moving screen for me, and I was able to put it in.”

The Penguins took their first lead late in the second frame at the 19:32 mark thanks to Karlsson’s sixth goal.

After beating Maple Leafs forward David Kampf on a draw in Toronto’s right circle, Carter backhanded the puck to the wall for defenseman Kris Letang, who then offloaded a short-area pass to the right point. From there, Karlsson boomed a one-timer through a phalanx of bodies and under Woll’s glove on the near side. Acciari provided a stout screen on the sequence. Letang and Carter had assists.

The Penguins ran the same set play a handful of moments earlier, only to have Woll swallow Karlsson’s first attempt at a one-timer and set up a second draw in the right circle.

“It’s been a set play for as long as guys can shoot one-timers,” Karlsson quipped. “It’s late in the period. Both (Acciari and Carter) are both faceoff guys on their strong side. We had two righties out there. So, it was pretty natural. It worked the first time. The second time, I got a little bit of a screen. Same shot. Just a little bit more traffic on the second.”

In the third period, the Penguins prevented the Maple Leafs from trafficking many legitimate offensive aspirations.

The Penguins’ first line (Crosby, Guentzel and O’Connor) as well as fourth line (Acciari, Carter and Nieto) saw the majority of ice time during the final frame.

“We just defended a little bit harder,” Crosby said. “We probably did a better job of just making better decisions that didn’t allow them to get odd-man rushes or clean looks. When they did, (Jarry) made some big saves. We didn’t quite sit back. A team like that that’s dangerous, they’re going to get looks, but if you can limit them, then you’re doing a good job. I thought we did that for the most part.”

Jarry’s record improved to 7-8-0 after he made 31 saves on 33 shots.

It was Jarry’s first win since a 5-3 road victory against the Columbus Blue Jackets on Nov. 14. And a vital win for his team, especially in how it was accomplished.

“We weren’t afraid to go out there and play to win this game instead of being scared of losing it,” Karlsson said. “It was a step forward for us. Hopefully, it can build some confidence for us.”

Notes:

• Rust was scratched for the third consecutive game due to an undisclosed injury.

• Penguins forward Vinnie Hinostroza and defenseman Dmitri Samorukov were healthy scratches.

• Penguins forward Jansen Harkins returned to the lineup for the first time since Oct. 18. Primarily deployed on the third line, Harkins logged 6:38 of ice time on nine shifts and had two attempted shots.

In a paper transaction, Harkins was recalled from Wilkes-Barre/Scranton of the American Hockey League on Saturday morning after being assigned to the AHL roster Friday evening. Over the previous eight days, Harkins has been repeatedly shuffled between the NHL and AHL rosters for the sake of the team’s day-to-day management of the salary cap.

• Penguins forward Reilly Smith has gone seven consecutive games without a point.

• Carter’s assist was his first point of the season.

• Maple Leafs forward Max Domi appeared in his 600th career game.