In Pittsburgh, Elias Pettersson had a double on Thursday night for the visiting Vancouver Canucks.
His second of the night came at 3:05 in extra time to give the Canucks a 4-3 win over the Penguins.
“We’re trying to build something good here,” Pettersson said. “Not every night you’re going to have your best legs or whatever. Just continue building and find a way to win because wins are all that matters.”
The Canucks improved to 28-11-3 off their fourth straight win.
Thatcher Demko made 32 saves in the win.
The Canucks took a 2-0 lead in the first period on two goals from Brock Boeser, 47 seconds apart.
His first came at 5:44 for a 1-0 lead, and hit for the second at 6:31 for the 2-0 advantage.
“Definitely grindy,”Vancouver’s J.T. Miller said. “They’re not all going to be perfect or pretty, especially on the road against one of the top teams in the League for the last little while. So, we feel good about the two points. We’re happy to get the win. We’re trying to get wins right now.”
The Pens got on the board at 6:20 of the first on a marker form Marcus Pettersson to trim the deficit to 2-1.
“It’s a hard-fought point,” Marcus Pettersson said. “I think we competed hard in coming back and tying it up, so it’s a hard-fought point. … We competed a lot harder [in the second and third]. Didn’t give them as many looks, I think. The looks they got and tips in front of the net, they were just too good. So, we dug down and competed hard from there on in.”
Pettersson hit for first of the night at 17:31 to send the game to the middle frame with the Canucks up, 3-1.
“Pretty resilient group,” Vancouver coach Rick Tocchet said. “There are moments, obviously, we have to clean up. … I have to admit that when the pressure’s on us, guys aren’t getting rattled. That’s good. That’s a good thing. We want to stick to our game as much as possible.”
The Penguins dropped to 20-15-5.
Sidney Crosby scored at 6:05 of the middle frame to cut the Pens deficit to 3-2.
Crosby potted his second of the night with 29 seconds left in the game clock for the 3-3 tie to force the extra session.
“I don’t think the start was good,” Crosby said. “In the second and third, we were better. … It’s hard to fall behind against a team like that. I thought we did a good job staying with it and getting ourselves back in the game.”
Alex Nedeljkovic got the start for the Pens, he made six saves, yielding three goals before getting the hook in the first intermission.
“I thought it was tough to assess ‘Ned’s’ game because the goals were difficult saves,” Pittsburgh coach Mike Sullivan said. “We made the decision to switch goalies mainly because we were trying to create a spark because we didn’t think our team had the energy that we needed or the juice, whatever you want to call it.
“I didn’t think we played with the energy that we needed to in the first period. I thought ‘Jars’ played really well.”
Tristan Jarry made 19 saves in relief.
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