Penguins fight, scratch, claw to earn win over Bruins

This article originally appeared on PGHHockeyNOW.

In a wild battle of teams clad in black and gold it was the Pittsburgh Penguins (32-17-14) erasing a three-goal deficit to down the Boston Bruins (35-23-5), 5-4 on the strength of two goals from Anthony Mantha and an overtime tally from Tommy Novak. The win snapped a three-game losing streak for the Penguins and kept them one point ahead of the idle New York Islanders for second place in the Metropolitan Divison.

The Bruins kicked off the scoring when they got their first power play opportunity of the game and took full advantage. After a failed clearing attempt by Ryan Shea, the Bruins’ Charlie McAvoy was able to keep the puck in at the point and throw a cross-ice pass to Morgan Geekie at the top off the left circle. Before you could blink the puck was off Geekie’s stick, across the crease and onto the stick of Pavel Zacha (17) positioned in the middle of the right circle. Zacha then quickly wristed the puck through the five hole of Penguins’ netminder Arturs Silovs who attempted to go post-to-post, but appeared to be off balance as the puck traveled between his legs. The goal came at 9:27 to give the Bruins an early 1-0 lead, but it would not be the last time the Penguins heard from Zacha.

The Penguins’ best chance of their nine shots in the first came on a pointblank shot from Noel Acciari with 53 seconds left in the period, but he rang a wrister off the right post and the Bruins to took a 1-0 lead into the first intermission. It was actually Acciari’s second post shot of the period.

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