Sheary leads Penguins' rally vs. Oilers
PITTSBURGH -- Conor Sheary scored his second goal of the game with 1:42 remaining, and the Pittsburgh Penguins overcame the Edmonton Oilers' top-line speed and a two-goal deficit to beat the Edmonton Oilers 4-3 Tuesday night.
The Oilers' fleet line of Patrick Maroon, Connor McDavid and Jordan Eberle capitalized on a succession of up-ice rushes to open a 3-1 lead in the second period, but Evgeni Malkin tied it in the third with a one-handed sweep of Phil Kessel's pass to the net.
Eberle scored twice, and McDavid -- in his first head-to-head matchup with Penguins star Sidney Crosby -- set up all three Oilers goals.
Sheary won it by scoring from the side of the net after left winger Benoit Pouliot whacked twice at the puck, trying to push it out of Sheary's reach, but it appeared to deflect off Pouliot's stick and past goalie Cam Talbot.
Penguins goalie Matt Murray won his third in a row, making 25 saves despite allowing the three successive Oilers goals. The Penguins (9-2-2) improved to 6-0-1 in their past seven games.
Talbot made 27 saves.
The Penguins rallied from a two-goal deficit against the Oilers on home ice only once in their history, a 6-5 win on March 17, 1992, when Kevin Stevens and Ron Francis scored 49 seconds apart.
The Penguins, returning home from a 3-0-1 road trip that was mostly in the West, quickly opened a 1-0 lead when Sheary's slap shot from the left circle beat Talbot to the glove side only 1:57 in.
Then the Oilers (9-4-1) turned on the speed -- which, only a season ago, was the asset that drove the Penguins to the Stanley Cup.
With McDavid leading a series of odd-man rushes off Penguins missed shots at the other end, several after Talbot couldn't prevent long rebounds, the Oilers took a 3-1 lead in less than a nine-minute span.
McDavid fed Eberle for a short-range wrist shot from the right circle at 14:23 of the first, and that was only the start.
Less than three minutes later, McDavid's up-ice rush along the boards led to his backhand pass to Maroon at the left post, and Maroon beat Murray from a few feet out for his fifth goal.
Early in the second, the Penguins couldn't convert a rare four-on-one rush, and that led to another odd-man rush and McDavid setting up Eberle for his second of the night and fifth of the season at 3:20.
The Penguins pulled back within 3-2 about nine minutes later, with defenseman Trevor Daley's pass to the crease deflecting off Patric Hornqvist's skate directly to Carl Hagelin for his second goal of the season.
NOTES: Penguins G Matt Murray, coming off a 5-0 shutout Saturday at San Jose, made his first start at PPG Paints Arena this season after missing several weeks with a broken right hand. He also started back-to-back games for the first time. ... Oilers F Zack Kassian, injured Saturday against the New York Islanders, was out of the lineup. ... The Oilers wrapped up a five-game road trip. The Penguins were coming off a 3-0-1 road trip in which all but one game was on the West Coast. ... The Penguins called up D Steve Oleksy and D Chad Ruhwedel from Wilkes-Barre/Scranton (AHL), but neither was in uniform. They also sent F Tom Sestito to their top farm club. ... The Penguins scratched F Tom Kuhnhackl. ... Former No. 1 draft picks Sidney Crosby and Connor McDavid met for the first time in the NHL, and they opposed each other on the opening faceoff. According to ESPN, the first Mario Lemieux-Wayne Gretzky matchup also was on Election Day, in 1984.