Four goals up in a home opener and still needing overtime to beat Montreal. That single sequence tells you everything about these early Penguins: the offense is a furnace, the structure still has soft spots, and the veterans refuse to let either fact decide the night.
Pittsburgh ran Montreal out of PPG Paints Arena for most of two periods. Declan Carlile, Samuel Girard, Tommy Novak, and Ben Kindel turned a 1-1 game into 5-1 inside fifteen second-period minutes. The Penguins outshot the Canadiens 23-5 across a 25-minute stretch while building that cushion. Arturs Silovs looked comfortable. The building felt settled. Then the third period arrived and the lead evaporated in four waves: Nick Suzuki late in the second, Cole Caufield early in the third, Chris Kreider with the goalie pulled, and Ivan Demidov 24 seconds later. Suddenly it was 5-5 and Dan Muse’s bench was staring at a collapse that should not happen to a team that just put 13 goals on the board in its first two games.
The Collapse Was Structural, Not Random
Muse did not hide from it. “I think any game you’re going to have things that you’re going to look back on,” he said. “There’s some more things to clean up after tonight, for sure.” That is coach-speak for defensive-zone coverage that stopped tracking the high slot and failed to clear the crease when Montreal’s skill pieces went to work. Caufield’s second goal came from exactly that space. Kreider and Demidov finished the job with the extra attacker because Pittsburgh could not win the next faceoff battle or force a dump.
The counter-case is obvious and fair. Martin St. Louis’s group has speed and talent up front; a 5-1 lead invites desperation; two points are two points and the Penguins are 2-0-0. Tommy Novak himself framed it that way: “Anytime you kind of give up a lead like that, it feels good to come through with the two points. That’s huge.” He is right on the result. He is incomplete on the process. Outshooting a team 23-5 and then allowing four unanswered goals is not variance. It is a failure of shell rotations and puck management once the opponent starts winning races.
Special teams still papered over some of it. Pittsburgh went 2-for-4 on the power play and remains perfect on the kill through two games. Kindel’s tip of an Erik Karlsson point shot made it 5-1 and gave the home crowd the illusion of control. Those units are real strengths. They do not erase the five-on-five bleed that turned a laugher into a coin flip.
Veterans Still Dictate the Ending
Evgeni Malkin scored and added two assists, his 1,411th career point, and became only the second 40-year-old in NHL history to pot a goal in each of his first two games of a season. Gordie Howe did it in 1968-69. Sidney Crosby’s helper on Girard’s goal was career assist No. 1,109, tying Joe Thornton for seventh all-time. Kris Letang was on the ice for the winner. When the game tilted into chaos, the same three names who have carried this franchise for two decades re-centered it.
Novak finished it at 1:33 of overtime on a clean 2-on-1. “It was really just off a change,” he said. “I hopped on the ice, and I’m on a two-on-one. Geno makes a great pass, like he does, and I kind of shoveled it in.” Three points for Novak on the night. The depth pieces are producing. Andrei Kuzmenko made his debut after leave following his father’s death. Kindel returned from injured reserve and scored. The supporting cast is contributing goals. The question is whether that cast can lock down a two-goal lead once the schedule stops handing out soft minutes.
Muse’s longer assessment after the extra point captured the tension cleanly: they stuck with it, found a way, got the two points, and still have plenty to fix. Confidence that the group will correct it is earned only if Monday against Winnipeg looks nothing like the final twelve minutes of this one.
Thirteen goals in two games is elite offense by any recent Penguins standard. A perfect penalty kill through five shorthanded situations is a foundation. None of it matters if a four-goal cushion still requires overtime heroics from the same core that has been bailing this franchise out since 2005. The next test arrives fast. Winnipeg does not gift you 23-5 shot stretches. The cleanup Muse mentioned has a deadline of the next faceoff, not some vague mid-season checkpoint.
