Kent Manderville has played 575 games in the National Hockey League. Handled hundreds of faceoffs. Killed as least as many penalties. Blocked more shots than he would care to remember.
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Mario Lemieux congratulates Alexei Kovalev after setting up Kovalev's second goal of the first period last night. (Matt Freed, Post-Gazette photos) |
And scored seven game-winning goals.
That total might not sound like much, but it's up significantly from yesterday, when Manderville was stuck on six.
No. 7 came with 3 1/2 minutes left in regulation last night, when Manderville swatted a Jan Hrdina feed past Tampa Bay goalie Nikolai Khabibulin to break a 3-3 tie in what became a 5-3 Penguins victory at Mellon Arena.
The goal was the first in 12 games for Manderville, whose job is to focus on preventing goals, not producing them.
"I'm not known to be scoring goals late in the game," Manderville said. "But being out at that time of the game, the opportunity presents itself."
Opportunity, on this night, came in the form of a backhand pass from Hrdina, who had carried the puck behind the Tampa Bay goal line before flipping it to Manderville in front of the net.
Manderville said he wasn't caught off guard by the pass because Hrdina is "such a nifty player," but he might not have scored if he'd gotten solid wood on the shot. As it was, he actually struck the puck twice before it sailed into the net on the short side.
"Because it double-hit, Khabibulin overplayed it and it went [in] on his right side," Manderville said.
Lightning Coach John Tortorella called it "a tough way to lose," and no one argued the case. The hard reality, though, is that even though the Penguins' only true five-on-five goal was the winner -- Mario Lemieux closed out the scoring with two seconds left when he hit an empty net -- it was the Penguins' special teams that did in Tampa Bay.
The Penguins (7-2-2) scored on the first three of their five chances with the extra man, while preventing the Lightning from getting anything more than frustration from its four man-advantages.
Factor in another strong performance by goalie Johan Hedberg, who stopped 26 of 29 shots, and the Penguins manufactured two points by using the same formula that had gotten them through the previous three games: Dominant special teams and excellent goaltending.
"The power play and the penalty-killing, that was the difference for us," Penguins Coach Rick Kehoe said. "Five-on-five, they outplayed us. We were struggling."
During the Penguins' four-game winning streak, they have scored on 11 of 21 power plays, allowed just two goals in 20 short-handed situations and had Hedberg stop 116 of the 124 shots he has faced.
Lemieux, as usual, was the catalyst for the power play. He got the primary assist on each of the Penguins' three goals with the man-advantage, extending his scoring streak to 10 games and his league-leading points total to 27.
The Penguins will try to extend their winning streak when they visit Florida Wednesday, and they'll do it with a significantly different lineup. Martin Straka, whose back was injured in the off-season, is expected to be in uniform when they face the Panthers, and forwards Kris Beech and Milan Kraft were returned to the Penguins' minor-league team in Wilkes-Barre after last night's game.
Kehoe said defenseman Josef Melichar, who injured his shoulder in the second game of the season, could return during the three-game trip that begins in Florida.
Alexei Kovalev gave the Penguins a 1-0 lead at 16:41 of the opening period, taking a cross-ice feed from Lemieux and snapping a shot from outside the right dot. The puck glanced off the stick of Tampa Bay defenseman Jassen Cullimore and sailed over Khabibulin's left shoulder during a four-on-three.
Sixty-seven seconds later, Kovalev made the score 2-0. Lemieux, positioned behind the goal line to the right of the net, threw him the puck above the left hash, and Kovalev blew it past Khabibulin for his 10th of the season.
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Ian Moran goes airborne against Lightning defenseman Jassen Cullimore last night in the Penguins' 5-3 victory at Mellon Arena. | |
Tampa Bay has been resilient since the earliest days of this season, however, and didn't wilt after the Penguins went in front.
Vaclav Prospal pulled the Lightning within one at 6:53 of the second period, when he beat Hedberg from inside the right circle on Tampa Bay's 12th shot.
The Penguins, who had survived two Tampa Bay power plays in the first period, did it again in the second, although Hedberg had to make a dazzling stop on Fredrik Modin from the slot at 17:37 while the Penguins were down a man because of a delay-of-game minor.
Hrdina put the Penguins up, 3-1, by scoring during a five-on-three at 8:03 of the third. He was hovering near the front lip of the crease and flipped in a Lemieux rebound for his fourth of the season.
The Penguins had a chance to put the game away at that point -- Tampa Bay had been issued three penalties in a span of 63 seconds, so the Penguins had another five-on-three and a five-on-four -- but Martin St. Louis made the score 3-2 at 8:03, then tied it at 16:00.
At the time, it looked as if his second goal would put the game into overtime, giving the Lightning at least one point for their trouble. As it was, it simply gave Manderville a rare opportunity to play a high-profile role.
"It's awesome to see a guy like that get the goal," defenseman Jamie Pushor said.
Especially when it prevented the Penguins from losing a point because of a late comeback by the Lightning, something that had happened 14 days earlier.
"If we would have lost a point again to these guys, we would have been very disappointed," Pushor said. "We deserved to get two points tonight."
Dave Molinari can be reached at 412-263-1144.
Penguins outlast Lightning in 5-3 win 
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