Penguins/Golden Knights Recap: Losin’ lately gamblers. Pens burned in Vegas

· Yahoo Sports

LAS VEGAS, NEVADA - MARCH 12: Mitch Marner #93 of the Vegas Golden Knights scores a goal against Arturs Silovs #37 of the Pittsburgh Penguins during the second period at T-Mobile Arena on March 12, 2026 in Las Vegas, Nevada. (Photo by Zak Krill/NHLI via Getty Images) | NHLI via Getty Images

Pregame

The Penguins use the same lines and lineup as the last game, Arturs Silovs gets back in the net.

The Vegas Golden Knights get captain Mark Stone back in the lineup for his first game since getting injured against these Penguins back on March 1st.

First period

Vegas gets the first goal, tough sequence for Parker Wotherspoon who has to retreat while dealing with a bouncing puck, by the time he settles it and spins to clear it the attempt hits the linesman’s skate and is there for the taking. Braeden Bowman makes a nice pass over for Colton Sissons to finish. 1-0 Golden Knights early.

Connor Clifton makes a late play on a player who doesn’t have the puck, Vegas gets the first power play. The Pens kill it off.

Vegas gets going in transition again, Tommy Novak gets a piece of a player pulling up on him and trips him, giving the Knights a second power play near the end of the period.

Shots are 6-6, not too much happening for the Penguins who find themselves down 1-0 after the first.

Second period

Pittsburgh kills off the carryover penalty from the first period and get their own power play soon after when Rasmus Andersson sideswipes Ville Koivunen for no reason away from the play. The Pens don’t get a shot on it, and worse, Vegas scores on the next shift. Pavel Dorofeyev shouldn’t be a hard player to find since he’s right to the side of the net but Ilya Solovyov got lost in traffic and the Knights got the puck to their leading scorer and he showed his skill by firing a puck over the shoulder of Silovs for his 31st of the season. 2-0.

It takes a while for the Pens to get a shot on goal in the second period, once they break the ice and put a little pressure on, they score. Bryan Rust whips a puck to the net with traffic in front, puck goes in with Rickard Rakell able to get a piece on the way. 2-1 game now.

That goal didn’t deter Vegas, Mitch Marner makes a great play to get the puck around Silovs and tucks it in. Another tough look for Solovyov to give the puck right to Marner then completely lose him once Marner got the pass back. Lead extended back to two just 56 seconds after the Pittsburgh goal.

Pittsburgh gets a power play, it looks like Novak mostly falls but Marner gets rung up for the trip. Not much comes of it.

The Pens get one back, Anthony Mantha enters the zone and makes a wonderful cross-ice pass that finds Ben Kindel driving the net. Kindel is able to direct the puck in for his 16th goal of the season. 3-2 game with 3:38 to play.

Even period for total goals, the Pens find a way to keep hanging close after 40 minutes.

Third period

The Pens keep pushing but get a little sloppy and get burnt. Wotherspoon swoops into the offensive zone deeper than Koivunen and leaves the puck for him. Koivunen gets muscled off of it and Vegas is off on an odd-man rush. They convert on it, thanks to their best two players of the night when Marner finds Dorofeyev, who unleashes a great shot to the top corner. 4-2 game.

Jack Eichel wants to remind that he’s a pretty good player too, he gets in on the act with a blocker side shot that foils Silovs. 5-2.

The Pens get a power play with 7:39 to go and pull the goalie to make it a 6v4 situation, ‘cuz hey, why not. They get a lot of zone time but can’t score. Pittsburgh leaves the goalie pulled to keep plugging away, it takes until 58 seconds left before the Golden Knights can finally hit the open net to set the 6-2 final score.

Some thoughts

  • In some ways it could be said the Penguins are missing Sam Girard out of the lineup almost as much as they are Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin. OK, that sounded better as a thought in my head than it looks written out on the screen, so maybe it’s better to phrase it that the Pens are really missing Girard. I think Solovyov’s had a couple of rocky games in a row and big mistakes as a defender can be costly, often time ending up in the back of the net. Solovyov’s play on the second and third Vegas goal was not pretty to say the least. Not sure if Girard can be healthy enough to play by Saturday or the team would resort to giving the recently called up Alex Alexeyev a game but they certainly have to consider whatever it takes to get Solovyov out of the lineup.
  • Going back to last game the Penguins had three straight goals generated by Bryan Rust throwing a puck on net. Not a bad strategy at this point to try and get bodies and traffic in front, fling it on and see what happens.
  • The top power play needs a tweak. It’s nice to see Egor Chinakhov out there but he’s positioned himself too often in space, drifting near the blueline where he’s not a threat even when he gets the puck. He never heads to the net, even when there’s a lane and the puck is on the other side. He’s also been awkward to receive passes and hasn’t been able to create. Koivunen on the second pair plays that position a lot more active and better. All things considered, the Pens might as well put the right shot Ben Kindel on that left side or at least adjust the coaching to get Chinakhov more cohesive within that unit.
  • I think Dorofeyev might be the idealized finished product for Chinakhov to turn into (even though they’re basically the same age and experience). What a wicked shot he’s got.
  • The stat-line won’t do Silovs any favors but there can’t be a lot reasonably put on him tonight. Would you have liked to see a stop on Eichel’s third period goal? Yeah, maybe. Stuart Skinner made a great save in the third period while losing 4-2, but at some point that can’t be a realistic place to be. The Pens were a little too sloppy and were made to pay.
  • Can’t say there was any quit in the Penguins, they pulled the goalie and played their big dogs heavy down the stretch. From the time the third period was at 7:39 to play down to 2:43 (4:56 of game time), Rakell played 3:48 of it. From the time there was 8:42 left in the game down to the ENG at 58 seconds (7:44 of game time), Kris Letang played 6:56 of it. Erik Karlsson played even more, taking a 3:58 shift and only was off the ice for 55 seconds in between the 7:42 mark down to the ENG. We’ll see about the wisdom of that potentially draining older players who still have a lot of hockey games coming up in the near future, but it can’t be said that the Pens didn’t do everything possible to make a comeback, even though at the then score of 5-2 with limited time, a three-goal comeback was incredibly bleak.
  • The Pens fall to 2-6-0 all-time in Las Vegas. The Golden Knights have had some quality teams over these past nine years, Pittsburgh has never been able to get much going at T-Mobile Arena.
  • There was some good news on the out of town scores, Detroit, Boston and Columbus also all lost tonight (CBJ picked up a point with an overtime loss). Never a bad thing when both the teams currently in the Wild Card spots lose in regulation to potentially create another playoff path for Pittsburgh beyond the cut-and-dry finish within the top-3 of their division.

The Golden Knights get their payback on the Pens for the 5-0 shutout game earlier in the month, Pittsburgh leaves town to head over to Salt Lake City for a game on Saturday night. If nothing else, at least Crosby, Malkin (and Girard!) are one game closer to coming back.

Read full story at source