:format(webp)/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/23828703/451625827.0.jpg)
Saturday night games in Canada are usually something pretty special. Hockey Night in Canada. Homecoming games for a lot of players usually (the talking points for homecoming Pens were Kris Letang, Marc-Andre Fleury and Pascal Dupuis). Tonight was not the case. The Canadiens defeated the Penguins by a score of 3-2.
Robbery Moment: The Penguins, notably Jussi Jokinen, bobbled the puck a bit at the offensive blue line and it led to a 2-on-1 for the Canadiens.
Fleury stood tall, robbing Ryan White with a great glove save, on the first Canadiens shot of the game.
Lucky Moment: Late in the first period, a puck got away from Fleury and dribbled towards the goal line.
Brooks Orpik swooped in to clear the puck away from the crease.
Rookie Moment: Olli Maatta made one of his first glaring mistakes since he made his NHL debut this season. He attempted to lead a breakout with a pass through the middle of the ice. It was intercepted by Max Pacioretty, who beat Fleury with a great snipe shot to give the Canadiens a 1-0 lead.
Plekanec made it 2-0. Pacioretty stretched the lead to 3-0 with his 2nd goal of the night.
James Neal scored on the power play to make it 3-1, and later made it 3-2 after a tremendous coast-to-coast drive by Malkin.
Scary Moment: Malkin, after driving to the net, went awkwardly into the end boards, reminiscent of last year when he did vs. the Panthers, which caused a concussion.
He skated off after laying on the ice for a moment and came out for his next shift, appearing to be okay.
The silver lining after a loss like this is the fact that the Pens beat the Ducks and the Caps this week, as well as a division win vs. the Islanders. Always tough going into Montreal on a Saturday night. Still a good week.
Pens travel to Boston to face the Bruins on Monday night.