Penguins beat Rangers, but lose Jared McCann - TribLIVE

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Having just completed a difficult and heated three-game series with the Philadelphia Flyers, their most enduring rivals, Saturday afternoon, the Pittsburgh Penguins had little more than 24 hours to gird themselves for their next foe, the New York Rangers, on Sunday evening at PPG Paints Arena.

Getting ramped up to duel your nemesis repeatedly? Sure, that’s easy.

But how difficult is it to generate that same energy for a fairly unremarkable outfit such as the Rangers?

Penguins coach Mike Sullivan professes his squad takes a one-size-fits all approach to all opponents, regardless of history.

“It’s very much a similar circumstance to a playoff environment when you’re trying to learn through the experience, then you’ve got to be ready to put it behind you, whether you had success or you didn’t have success, whether it’s positive or whether it’s negative,” Sullivan said via video conference. “Then, you’ve just got to focus on the task at hand and what’s in front of you. That’s the approach that we’ve taken.”

The Penguins appeared to take that heed of that missive as they defeated the Rangers, 5-1.

It was their third win out of their past four games, but it came at a price as forward Jared McCann left the game at 14 minutes, 45 seconds of the second period with an apparent injury. There was no immediate word on his status following the game.

The Rangers took a 1-0 lead 1:18 into regulation.

Rangers forward Mika Zibanejad created a two-on-one rush with Alexis Lafreniere against Penguins defenseman Cody Ceci. From the the right circle, Zibanejad faked a wrister, jammed up goaltender Casey DeSmith’s mechanics and lifted a forehand over DeSmith’s glove on the near side for his third goal of the season.

DeSmith made 23 saves on 24 shots to improve his record to 5-2-0.

A three-goal spurt by the Penguins a span of 61 seconds put them up 3-1 to close the first period. First, defenseman John Marino tied the score at 16:13 of the first period.

Taking a pass at the right point of the offensive zone, Marino slinked his way up the boards and into the right circle. Utilizing a screen by Penguins forward Evan Rodrigues, Marino ripped a wrister past goaltender Alexandar Georgiev’s blocker on the far side for his first goal since March 3, 2020.

The Penguins took a lead at the 16:52 mark. After McCann backhand-chopped a puck from in front of the visiting bench across the ice, Rangers defenseman K’Andre Miller stumbled in defending the puck at the blue line and yielded a breakaway to forward Kasperi Kapanen.Attacking the net, Kapanen lifted a wrister over Georgiev’s glove for his sixth goal.

It became a 3-1 score at 17:14 thanks to Penguins forward Sidney Crosby collecting his eighth goal. Taking a pass from the neutral zone from defenseman Brian Dumoulin at the offensive blue line, Crosby surged between Rangers defensemen Adam Fox and Ryan Lindgren, veered to the left circle and fired a wobbly wrister past Georgiev’s glove on the far side.

The Rangers called a timeout to regroup and pulled Georgiev in favor of Keith Kinkaid.

Third-period goals by forward Evgeni Malkin, his sixth at 13:57 off a two-on-one rush, and Zach Aston Reese, his fifth at 16:37 on a goal-mouth scramble, secured victory.

Seth Rorabaugh is a Tribune-Review staff writer. You can contact Seth by email at srorabaugh@triblive.com or via Twitter .

Categories: Penguins/NHL | Sports

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