Penguins extend home dominance of Blue Jackets with shootout win
Charlie Coyle scored the winning goal in the shootout and the Columbus Blue Jackets kept new coach Rick Bowness' record perfect by edging the host Pittsburgh Penguins 4-3 on Saturday night.
With the shootout knotted 1-1 on goals by Columbus' Kent Johnson and Pittsburgh's Egor Chinakhov, Coyle deked his way to net the winner in the bottom of the fourth round to move Bowness to 3-0-0 this week since taking the job Monday.
Zach Aston-Reese, Danton Heinen and Kirill Marchenko scored goals as Columbus won its fourth straight overall and improved to 5-1 in shootouts. Goaltender Elvis Merzlikins stopped 29 shots.
Sidney Crosby had a goal and an assist, and Connor Clifton and Rickard Rakell tallied for the Penguins. Goalie Arturs Silovs made 22 saves.
Pittsburgh's rally extended their home point streak against one opponent to 19 games (16-0-3), the NHL's longest active stretch.
The Penguins fell to 1-7 in the shootout, and all four matches between the teams went to overtime.
Aston-Reese hit the net for the first time this season off a broken play. The fourth-liner found a deflection off Zach Werenski's long shot and scored from the low slot at 2:42.
Clifton evened it 1-all just over seven minutes later on a fortunate bounce. The puck skipped by the skate of Dmitri Voronkov and right to the defenseman, who buried his first goal wearing the black-and-gold of Pittsburgh.
Playing in his 1,399th NHL game, Crosby set up the third score with over two minutes left in the period, finding a puck in the corner and whipping a pass to Rakell for the home side's first lead.
Marchenko bolted through the middle of the ice in the second frame and tallied at 7:32 on an unassisted marker to knot it again.
Blue-liner Erik Gudbranson fired a shot from out deep that Heinen tipped in at 17:38, beating Silovs for a 3-2 lead for the visitors after 40 minutes.
In an intense third, Merzlikins made a spectacular save on Chinakhov with three minutes remaining, but with Silovs pulled for the extra skater, Crosby deflected a pass from Kris Letang with one minute left to force overtime.