Pens Leafs Recap: Comeau's hat trick powers Pittsburgh

The Pittsburgh Penguins stars shined bright in their 4-3 overtime win against the Toronto Maple Leafs, but it was a hat trick from an unlikely source that pushed them to the win. Blake Comeau capped off his third goal of the game in OT, Evgeni Malkin scored a goal and two assists and Sidney Crosby tacked on two assists in the win.

Comeau also opened the scoring, getting to the front of the net and putting the puck by Jonathan Bernier. The Pens would push the lead to 2 in the first period with Malkin getting on the board after a tic-tac-toe play with Kris Letang and Crosby setting him up. Toronto erased the lead in the second period with two Leo Komarov goals before Comeau put the Pens back on top by tipping in a Chris Kunitz shot.

Later in the second the Penguins power play contributed another goal- but unfortunately it would be for the Leafs. Crosby had a pass intercepted by Tyler Bozak who raced down the ice and beat Marc-Andre Fleury.

The score would stay that way until the end of the game with Comeau turning his trick. Game set match.

And with a few more thoughts on the game before we wrap it up:

• Comeau was the man of the game. The 3 goals but also 5 hits and he was getting under Dion Phaneuf 's thin skin. Perfect game from a supporting player.
• Which almost seems like a shame, since it will overshadow the night Malkin had. Geno looked unstoppable for portions of the game, and he ended up with a 3 point night. He even won 11 of 17 faceoffs, just dominant in about every facet.
• The third period was tied the entire time, the 4th line of Zach Sill - Marcel Goc - Craig Adams got exactly 2 shifts for 1:28 total played. Only having 3 lines is probably going to hurt the Penguins sooner or later as the season wears on. They need to upgrade personnel and get guys they can trust out there to play.
• That tied third period was very back-and-forth, and the Penguins even had a power play, but shots ended up just 5-3 Pittsburgh. Unusual to see such little amount of rubber make it to the net, by the last 5-10 minutes there both teams were holding on for OT.
• While Comeau is excelling on his current line, the same probably can't be said for Nick Spaling on the Crosby- Patric Hornqvist unit. Spaling hasn't seemed to fit in or get enough pucks to the net.
  
• After all the hullaballo about the new yellow pads for Fleury- ones medically proven to give an advantage to shooters- didn't seem to effect Toronto, or MAF for that matter. All the goals surrendered (a partially blocked shot, a tip-in, a breakaway shot high) weren't 5-hole or due to color of leg pads.
• With the 2 assists tonight, Crosby becomes the sixth fastest player to 800 career points in league history.

Another game down, and that's it for the season series with Toronto. 3-0 sweep for the Pens. Moving right along, the holiday is coming but so is a back-to-back set of games Friday and Saturday.