In Pittsburgh Tuesday, the patsies of the NHL are not playing their role well.
The Vancouver Canucks defeated the Penguins, 3-2, in overtime to improve to 4-2-0.
Brock Boeser ended the OT suspense early when he scored with just 34 seconds gone in the extra session.
“Every time you play those special players on the other team, maybe you get fired up a little bit more,” Boeser said. “I don’t know what it is. It’s always special playing those guys.”
Ben Hutton and Brandon Sutterscored for the Canucks in regulation.
“[Tim Schaller ] just had it in the corner and he started walking behind the net,” Sutter said. “I was yelling for him to kind of cycle it to me. I kind of kept yelling and kept yelling. Once he circled the net, I figured I wasn’t going to get it, and he still got it through somehow.”
Anders Nilsson made 26 saves for the win.
“Real good team effort tonight. What a road game that was against a hockey team that’s obviously pretty deep. … I think we’re starting to figure out how we need to play as a group. I remember, about two weeks ago, talking about identity and talking to our group about it. We’re learning how to win some hockey games,” Canucks head coach Travis Green said of his club’s efforts.
Carl Hagelin and Jake Guentzel scored for the Pens.
“I think we’ve got to look to shoot the puck more and create offense off of the rebound. Sometimes it’s hard to make plays the way teams put back pressure on the puck and there’s a lot of sticks and legs in the high slot,” Penguins coach Mike Sullivan said . “We’re looking for that lateral play at the top of the circles a lot of times and it doesn’t materialize. So we’d be much better served, especially in this early part of the season where we’re trying to find our game, I think we’ve got to simplify everything we do.”
[WATCH: All Canucks vs. Penguins highlights]
Casey DeSmith made 23 saves in taking the loss.
“The guys played great tonight. They deserved better than that,” DeSmith said. “[The Canucks] played solid. We played great. It was probably our best game of the season so far. So it definitely stings to come out with an overtime loss.”
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