Thursday night featured the latest chapter in the legendary rivalry between Sidney Crosby and Alex Ovechkin. In an ultimate 5-3 win, the Penguins had an extremely up-and-down night. But in the end, their performance showed us a lot about what this team is capable of.
The start to this game was great. After a deflating loss in Toronto on Monday night, the Penguins got out to an early lead over Washington, scoring less than three minutes in, when Sidney Crosby rifled one on the power play.
Obviously, Sid doing Sid things is still amazing to see. But what was most impressive on this goal was the play of Kindel. Bryan Rust found Kindel on a pass, with the rookie down near the goal line when he receives the puck.
Kindel doesn’t take any time here to overthink. He makes a decisive, crisp pass to Crosby for the score. Do not underestimate how good of a play that is from Kindel, who notched his first NHL assist there.
Later in the first period, Crosby would add a second power play marker, giving him the league lead in goals at 11. Pittsburgh went into the first intermission up 2-0, and early in the second period, former Capital and current Penguin Anthony Mantha picked up the loose change to extend the lead to three.
Admittedly, Mantha got the credit after Tommy Novak had done most of the work, but it was nevertheless a continuation of the strong start Mantha has had to his season.
It was also a goal that kept up the momentum for the Penguins early in the second. But, it was not to last. As the period went along, the Penguins faded, and faded fast.
Dylan Strome got the Capitals on the board midway through the second, when he had the puck near the net and beat Arturs Silovs glove-side high. It was just one goal, but with the Penguins starting to take their foot off the gas a little bit, it opened the door for Washington to get right back in this game.
And the more the period went on, the more Washington woke up. Ovechkin took the puck into the net and threw it back to Strome, who eventually found a trailimhg Rasmus Sandin for a goal.
The vibe in the arena started to shift, and Pittsburgh was looking lost defensively. They were out of position, confused, and falling apart rapidly.
By the final few minutes, the Penguins were drowning.
The puck had already hit the back of their net three times in this period, and the Penguins had gotten bailed out by mere inches on an offside call.
You have to give credit to head coach Dan Muse and, more importantly, the team’s video review staff. But while that successful challenge had saved the Penguins a goal on the scoreboard, it didn’t make Washington’s attack any less threatening;. The Capitals had responded almost instantly to re-make it a one-goal game.
The Penguins were drowning. The ghosts of their late-game collapse in Toronto three nights prior were haunting them, and they desperately needed the horn to sound ending the second frame. Pittsburgh was less than five seconds away from a much-needed break when Washington’s Tom Wilson snuck one past the pads of Silovs.
For the second game in a row, the Penguins had blown a 3-0 lead in one period alone. Though the cast was pretty new by now, it was a movie Penguins fans had seen plenty of times over the last few years.
And that newest sequel came at a pivotal time in the season. Coming off back-to-back losses for just the second time all year, a rocky-looking Penguins were in danger of letting this game run completely away from them.
And letting that game slip away, after getting thumped 5-2 in Winnipeg and blowing it in Toronto, the Penguins were in their first real stretch of poor play this season.
This third period was going to tell us a lot about who this Penguins team really is this season. A second straight collapse could have served as the catalyst for a spiral that plummeted the Penguins back down to earth, and ultimately killed the surprise start that the team has enjoyed so far this year.
Instead, what we saw on the ice last night bucked the trends of the previous Penguin iterations, and what we saw on Monday night against the Maple Leafs. We saw a team come out of that locker room galvanized and ready to go.
Their energy level was way up coming out for the third. They looked more cohesive as a unit and got back to their cleaner play of the first and early second period.
But things still looked a little rocky. Even if the Penguins had stopped Washington’s barrage of goals, the Penguins had yet to punch back yet. In fact, they had to shield themselves from another Capitals swing.
A little under nine minutes into the period, Kindel was sent to the penalty box for punching the puck over the boards, just over the curve of the glass before it curls into the bench area. Looking like a kid sitting in timeout, Kindel could only watch as the Capitals, still holding all the momentum, rolled out Ovechkin and Co. for another try on the power play.
The arena got a huge sigh of relief, however, when Strome was called for a cross-check penalty, negating the rest of Washington’s advantage. Even if it didn’t mean the Penguins got much of a chance on their own power play, it killed the best chance yet that the Capitals had to take the lead for the first time in this game.
However, even an abbreviated attempt couldn’t stop the absolute heater that Pittsburgh’s power play is on right now. With less than a minute to go off of, Evgeni Malkin made a beautiful pass across the ice to an open Bryan Rust, who flipped one up on a deflecting one-timer up and past Charlie Lindgren.
For Rust, it was his fifth goal of the season. He hit the post twice in the first period, but he finally saw a puck go off his stick and miss the iron to the inside. Ironically, Kindel picked up a secondary assist on that goal as well.
And in their own end, the Penguins tightened up enough as well. Washington just couldn’t quite gain the traction in the offensive zone that they could late in the second. Before Kindel’s penalty, the Penguins had already successfully killed a Capitals power play earlier in the period.
Then, as the Capitals pulled their goaltender with a little over two minutes to go, Connor Dewar found the puck on his stick and skated to his own blue line, lifting one over the ice and into the yawning cage.
For me, it was a great sign for what this 2025-26 Penguins team has in them.
It would have been very easy, and perhaps predictable, for the Penguins to wither away and let the Capitals blow right past them. But they didn’t. They took full advantage of the breather and mental reset they could have in the second intermission, and Muse’s Penguins stepped up to the challenge.
It’s still hard to predict whether the Penguins can sustain winning at this rate. We’ve seen the cracks in their game and roster over the last few games, and the injuries mounting up didn’t help the growing wariness surrounding this team. After the Penguins blew a three-goal lead for a second time in as many games, the road to regression seemed right around the corner.
But to see them respond in the way they did during the third period was incredibly encouraging for this team.
Fifth Avenue Sports 
Leave a comment