LDN - Sports

Pens edge Bruins in OT for 7th straight win

[December 15, 2016] PITTSBURGH -- The third period typically is magic for the Pittsburgh Penguins this season. But overtime will do, too.

Bryan Rust provided the theatrics Wednesday with his first career overtime goal as the Penguins won their season-high seventh game in a row, 4-3 over the Boston Bruins at PPG Paints Arena.

The Penguins twice came back to forge a 1-1 tie after one period and a 2-2 tie after two periods. They improved to 10-7-3 when they trail or are tied going into the third period, thanks to Rust's backhand flip past Boston goaltender Tuukka Rask and under the crossbar at 1:24 of overtime.

Rust converted a feed from Evgeni Malkin.

"(Justin Schultz) made a nice play to quick-up the puck to (Malkin)," Rust said. "He saw I had a step on my guy. He made a nice play to space. I just kind of whacked at it, and it went in.

"The ice wasn't great in overtime, obviously, after playing a whole game, so I was just trying to catch Rask off-guard, and I was lucky enough to do that. Trying to get it up. It just happened to be kind a little bit lucky."

Rust has five goals and two assists over his past six games. Malkin extended his point streak at home to 13 games.

The Penguins (20-7-3) also won a season-best sixth straight at home, where they are 13-2-1.

Boston (16-12-3) lost for the fourth time in its past five games, although it got three points on a two-game road trip.

"There's a pretty strong belief no matter what kind of game it is that we can find a way to win it," said Pittsburgh's Sidney Crosby, who did not add to his league-leading total of 21 goals but got an assist to extend his point streak to nine games. "If it's going to be a tight, low-scoring game, we feel like we can do that and wait for our chances, and if it's high-scoring, we feel like we can score."

This one was somewhere in the middle.

"Even when we fell behind 3-2, we clawed back in and found a way to get ourselves a really valuable point," Bruins coach Claude Julien said. "You've got to be happy with (the road trip). You'd love to have that second point, but sometimes that's just the way it goes."

Through two periods, the teams traded goals by Boston's Brad Marchand, Pittsburgh's Schultz, Boston's David Krejci and Pittsburgh's Nick Bonino.

The Penguins broke the tie on Conor Sheary's first power-play goal of the season. He redirected in a shot from the left point by Brian Dumoulin for Pittsburgh's first lead, 3-2, at 9:02 of the third.

"I saw him see me, so I just kind of tried to stay back door, and he found me with a great pass," Sheary said of Dumoulin.

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Boston answered when David Pastrnak caught goalie Matt Murray out of the crease -- the goalie and Dumoulin both thought about going after the puck behind the net and bumped into each other -- and scored into a gaping net to make it 3-3 at 13:20. It was Pastrnak's 19th goal, second behind Crosby in the NHL.

"I think we just got a little bit unlucky," said Murray, who made a career-high 41 saves to improve to 12-2-0. "(Dumoulin) kind of ran into me and it threw him off and knocked my stick out of my hand. It was just a weird play.

"That's just a fluke. I don't think anybody really did anything wrong. It's just the fact that we kind of clipped each other is what threw everything off. If we don't clip each other, I just get back to my net and make the save or whatever. That really didn't affect us at all, I don't think."

With 54.3 seconds left in the third, Rask made a left pad save on Sheary, who had a breakaway, to preserve the tie in a game that produced 78 shots -- 42 by Boston -- through regulation.

Rask, who finished with 33 saves, had been on a 7-0-1 run against Pittsburgh.

"First two goals, I probably should've had at least one of those," Rask said.

Schultz had a goal and two assists, giving him five goals and 12 points over the past eight games.

"He's quietly just playing real effective hockey for us at both ends of the rink," Pittsburgh coach Mike Sullivan said. "He's helping us offensively the last few weeks here. That's helping us get wins here, but we've been real pleased with his overall game."

NOTES: Boston D Zdeno Chara played in his 1,300th NHL game. ... Boston placed F Matt Beleskey (right knee) on injured reserve and recalled D Matt Grzelcyk from Providence of the AHL. Grzelcyk made his NHL debut, as Boston scratched D Colin Miller, C Danton Heinen and D Joe Morrow. ... Penguins G Matt Murray started for the fourth game in a row, the first time he has started that many straight games this season. ... The Penguins scratched C Eric Fehr and D Steve Olesky. ... Pittsburgh closes its three-game homestand Friday against Los Angeles. ... It was the first of back-to-back games for the Bruins, who play at home Thursday against Anaheim. ... The Penguins, who won the Stanley Cup in June, ranked first in the NHL and third among U.S.-based pro sports franchises in Google's annual Search Trends list, which highlights the people and topics that captured the world's attention this year.

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