In Denver Wednesday night, Sidney Crosby tried his best to get the Pittsburgh Penguins into the win column when he scored a natural hat trick to tie the Colorado Avalanche at 3-3.
The Avs had taken a seemingly easy 3-0 lead on goals from Colin Wilson, Erik Johnson and Samuel Girard.
Samuel Girard had a goal in Avs’ win over Pittsburgh – file photo by Lewis Bleiman
“Some guys had a really good effort,” Penguins defenseman Kris Letang said. “When you think about Sid and his line … there’s a bunch of guys that would pack it in quick, but we stayed in it and kept battling and we gave ourselves a chance.”
Philipp Grubauer made 22 saves in the win.
“Our belief and our commitment have been really good and I think it’s growing,” Avalanche coach Jared Bednar said. “Hopefully we can continue with that. If we keep playing the way we’re playing and defending the way we’re defending we’re going to have success.”
The Avs improved to 15-6-4 and they are 8-0-1 in their nine games.
 Gabriel Landeskog ended the Crosby run when he scored in the third period for a 4-3 Avs lead.
Nathan MacKinnon and Carl Soderberg scored empty-net goals in the final seconds to give the Avs the win.
“I’m sure this is a game we’ll talk about for a while,” MacKinnon said of his fellow Nova Scotian. “We don’t play each other much, so for a regular-season game this is one of the fun ones I’ve been a part of, by Sid getting a hat trick and obviously us getting a big win.”
[WATCH: All Penguins at Avalanche highlights]
Tristan Jarry made 20 saves in the loss.
“I thought we had a lot of guys that played extremely hard. I thought Sid tried to will us a win with his effort. I thought he was terrific, he was terrific all night long,” Pens head coach Mike Sullivan
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