In Brooklyn, Monday night, Casey DeSmith made 25 saves for the {Pittsburgh Penguins in a 2-1 win over the New York Islanders after ther skills competition.
“There was a lot of adversity,” DeSmith said. “We had to kill a lot of penalties tonight. There was a lot of emotion in the building. Taking that penalty in overtime took everybody to kill that off, a lot of blocked shots.
“I think everybody has been finding ways to win and finding ways to keep the puck out of our net and put the puck in their net instead of [making] bad mistakes and finding ways to beat yourself almost. We’ve definitely turned a corner.”
Jake Guentzel was credited with game-winner in the skills competition – file photo courtesy of Lewis Bleiman
The Pens had to kill off a penalty in the overtime to get to the skills portion of the contest.
Derick Brassard scored in regulation for the Pens who moved to 13-10-6.
Brassard was called for tripping in the extra session to give the Isles their chance to win it.
“It’s a huge kill in overtime, obviously,” Penguins coach Mike Sullivan said. “That’s the difference in the game. It was a hard-fought game, there wasn’t a lot of room out there. That kill was huge. There were some blocked shots by Zach (Aston-Reese), by [Bryan Rust], Jack Johnson did a terrific job. Casey was there when we didn’t block the shots. All the guys that were out there did a terrific job.”
Anthony Beauvillier scored the lone goal for the Islanders.
“You’ve got to stay positive,” Islanders captain Anders Lee said. “It’s a shootout loss. Obviously you lose a point, that’s what you’re frustrated about. But when it comes down to [a shootout], you’ve got to look at how we played the game. Shootouts aren’t in (the Stanley Cup) playoffs; you don’t see any of that. Right now, we’ve got to look at how we played.”
The Isles dropped to 14-11-4.
New York had their chances in the overtime with the man up but could not make it count.
“It is frustrating,” Ryan Pulock said. “I was just trying to get them out of there a little bit so it opened up some space. They made a couple of good blocks.
“It’s tough. Maybe we could have done a little better of job of trying to use that to our advantage. We just learn from that situation, work on it and when we get that chance again, find a way to get it done.”
[WATCH: All Penguins vs. Islanders highlights]
Robin Lehner made 23 saves in the loss.
“He’s played pretty well the last couple of outings,” Islanders coach Barry Trotz said of Lehner, who has allowed two goals on 60 shots in his past two games. “He played well. I thought he made some real good saves early at key moments.”
You must be logged in to post a comment.