Craig Smith scored with 11 seconds left in overtime Tuesday night, leading the Boston Bruins to a 3-2 win over the Pittsburgh Penguins at TD Garden in Boston. The win extends the Bruins win streak to three, and ends a four game Penguins win streak.
Boston (4-1-1) got a beautiful shorthanded goal from Brad Marchand to open the scoring in the first. Charlie McAvoy took a Pittsburgh turnover at center ice and sent Marchand into the Penguins zone. Marchand cut from right to left across the slot and fired a shot that beat goalie Tristan Jarry glove side at 7:41 to make it 1-0. The Bruins doubled the lead when Marchand set up Nick Ritchie on the doorstep at 7:58 of period two on the 5 on 3 powerplay. The visitors would slice the margin in the third when Jason Zucker scored his first of the season at 9:47. The Pens had a chance to tie it when Kasperi Kapenen broke in alone on Tuuka Rask with 5:20 left, but Rask stopped him. Kapenen though would tie just over two minutes later, scoring unassisted to send the game to overtime. Both teams had great chances in the extra session as Boston had a 2 on 1 breakout that was stopped by Jerry, and the Penguins Evgeni Malkin had a breakaway immediately after that he shot off the crossbar. Pittsburgh also had a 3 on 0 breakout but got too fancy trying for the game winner and lost control of the puck and never got a shot on goal. The game winner came after a steal by McAvoy near the benches at center ice leading to a 2 on 0 with David Krejci and Smith. Krejci sent it to Smith at the last moment, and Smith fired it under the pads of Jarry from just below the right faceoff dot to end it.
Rask made 28 saves in the win. McAvoy had three points in the game assisting on all three goals. Marchand had a goal and an assist. Zucker had two points with a goal and an assist in the Pittsburgh loss, as the Penguins drop to 4-2-1 and were 0-6 on the powerplay. Jarry made 33 saves in net. The teams finish off their two game mini series in Boston Thursday night.
