PITTSBURGH, Pa – Sidney Crosby’s name hasn’t been too prominent lately in the 2106 playoffs but on Monday night that all changed. Crosby scored the game winning goal 40 seconds into overtime as the Pittsburgh Penguins won Game Two of the Eastern Conference Finals against the Tampa Bay Lightning 3-2 and sent the series back to Tampa all tied at 1-1. The Penguins outhit Tampa 47-36 and outshot the Bolts 41-21.
Anton Stralman and Jonathan Drouin scored for Tampa Bay while Phil Kessel and Matt Cullen scored for Pittsburgh. Stralman’s goal came off of a nice cross ice pass from Jonathan Marchessault and went high from a nice snap shot to get the Bolts to within one. Drouin tied the game at 2-2 with 50 seconds left in the period when he skated down the right wing and despite being a left handed shot snap a shot past Murray.
Kessel’s goal came as he skated down the left wing and saw an attempted shot go off the skate of a Tampa Bay player and came out to him who slammed home the rebound to put Pitt up 2-0. Cullen got the scoring going when he skated in on a 2-on-1 with Eric Fehr dished a pass to Fehr who took a shot and the rebound came back to Cullen who lined up a shot and put the shot past Namestnikov.
Little that both teams knew that all four goals in the first period would be the only goals in the game until overtime. Bryan Rust made a pass in the middle of the ice to Crosby whose shot went past Namestnikov despite Crosby being handcuffed on the shot but went in just inside the post for the game winner.
Game 3 and 4 are on Wednesday and Friday before returning to Pittsburgh on Sunday for Game 5.
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