The Penguins defeated the Devils in an away match with a score of 6:3 and left themselves a mathematical chance of reaching the playoffs. Currently, Mike Sullivan's team is in 11th place in the Eastern Conference and is only three points behind eighth-placed Washington.
The guests opened the scoring at the end of the 8th minute of the first period through the efforts of Erik Karlsson, but then missed three goals in a row, allowing Timo Maier, Curtis Lazari and Jesper Bratt to score. Pittsburgh managed to organize a comeback only in the final 20 minutes with the active participation of Evgeni Malkin.
First, during the power play, the Russian passed to Sidney Crosby, who reduced the gap. And just a minute later, Evgeniy equalized the score by sending the puck into the goal after Jack St. Ivany’s shot from the blue line.
When there were less than four minutes left in the match, Rickard Rakell scored, whose goal ultimately became the winning goal. And Malkin did not miss the chance to improve his personal statistics and after just 22 seconds he increased his team’s advantage. The Russian won the throw-in and then headed in Michael Bunting's cross at the far post.
Thus, a native of Magnitogorsk became the fourth player in the history of Pittsburgh who made three effective actions within one period at least 20 times. Mario Lemieux (74 periods), Jaromir Jagr (33) and Sidney Crosby (24) also managed this.
This season, Malkin has 59 (23 + 36) points, and throughout his career he has scored 1288 (494 + 794). After the match with New Jersey, the Russian moved into clear 35th place in league history in the number of assists, surpassing Guy Lefleur (793). The Pittsburgh veteran's closest target is Jari Kurri with 797 assists.
The Russian forward of Pittsburgh was recognized as the first game-day star in the NHL. The second went to Vegas forward Jonathan Marchessault, who also scored two goals and an assist, and the third went to Boston goalkeeper Linus Ullmark, who stopped 31 shots on his own goal.