The Penguins come back twice against the Kings and win the overtime thriller 3-2

Heading into their Tuesday game against the Pittsburgh Penguins, the Los Angeles Kings had won seven of their last eight games and were on a roll.

But the Penguins also had their luck and continued their winning streak against the Kings.

Pittsburgh rallied from a deficit twice before beating the Kings 3-2 in overtime. Rickard Rakell scored the OT winning goal by deflecting an Erik Karlsson floater from the point for his team-leading 14th goal of the season.

The Penguins are now 7-2-1 in their last 10 games against a hot Los Angeles team that sits in second place in the Atlantic Division behind only the Vegas Golden Knights. During that span, Pittsburgh earned six wins against teams currently in the playoffs.

Rakell pointed to the team’s hot streak at the end of last season – it beat some very good teams and almost catapulted itself into the playoffs – and how there’s a similar feeling in the room right now.

“I think it gives us a good feeling about our overall team play,” Rakell said. “And it gives everyone more confidence just to feel like we can play with any team in this league and no one is going to have an easy game against us.”

This game was another example of the big difference between the Penguins of a month ago and the Penguins of today.

They could have started it early as Penguins certified hitter Adrian Kempe scored just 33 seconds into the game. Instead, they responded by playing a defensively responsible game and pressuring the Kings with puck possession and anticipatory pressure in the offensive zone.

Evgeni Malkin scored his first goal in six games in the first half of the second period – and his seventh of the season. However, midway through the second frame, Los Angeles took the lead again with a goal from Alex Turcotte.

But the Penguins refused to give up. They were the better team in the second half of the game, and it finally paid off when defenseman Matt Grzelcyk scored his first goal in a Penguins jersey with 5:35 minutes left in regulation, forcing overtime.

“Right now the guys believe… they believe, you know,” head coach Mike Sullivan said. “I’m happy for them because we went through a difficult phase here at the beginning of the year. We kind of dragged ourselves back into the mix.”

Here are some notes and observations from Tuesday’s game:

– Wanted to quickly mention something Kings-related: Kempe’s goal dominance against the Penguins is really something else.

In his last five games against Pittsburgh, Kempe scored eight goals. He has nine goals and 14 total points against the Penguins in his career.

Whatever kind of player he is. He leads the Kings with 16 goals this season and is second only to Anze Kopitar with 31 points in 31 games.

– I’ve said it so many times, but Rakell is playing his very best hockey in a Penguins jersey this season – and possibly the best hockey of his career.

Rakell was excluded from Team Sweden for the 4 Nations Tournament because he is ranked third among Swedish-born players this season. He expressed disappointment at not being selected.

Not only has he scored those four goals and eight points in the six games since the snub, but he also has 12 points in that 10-game winning streak for the Penguins.

He is playing remarkable hockey and it is safe to say that he is currently loyal to the Swedish team’s selection committee.

– This is the first time I can honestly say that Owen Pickering had a somewhat inconsistent evening.

He and partner Kris Letang were on the ice for the first goal against Kempe, and Pickering performed poorly in the neutral zone and was beaten to the puck by Turcotte before scoring his partial breakaway goal.

Pickering has been pretty solid in his decision-making and in his own zone this season, but that wasn’t the case so much on Tuesday. He looked a little inexperienced against the Kings’ very talented first line.

But Sullivan said the team was pleased with how he handled the transition to top-pair minutes, especially with the increased responsibility brought on by the absence of Marcus Pettersson.

“Pick is 20 years old and plays 20 minutes,” Sullivan said. “He’s played against Kopitar and Danault and players like that quite a bit… that’s a handful. So we think he will compete hard. He’s not perfect, but he competes hard. He’s out there fighting.”

Pickering spent time on the Penguins’ second power play of the game with Erik Karlsson, which is a new look for him. I’m curious to see if this is something that sticks. Because of this special male advantage, he ran instead of Glass.

– Another player who I think had a bit of a bad night is Karlsson. He wasn’t bad by any means — he had three shots and sent the puck into the net after Rakell’s deflection goal in overtime — but he wasn’t at his best either.

He had a huge gap in the defensive zone early in the second period that led to a prime scoring opportunity for Los Angeles, and there were several instances where he failed to recover passes, fumbled the puck and generally hesitated.

Like Letang, he was very good during this Penguins winning streak. But I don’t think this was his best game.

– Once again, Malkin scored his first goal in six games on Tuesday – and I’m still not even sure it was his.

After a lengthy review process, it was determined that Malkin received a portion of the puck as it traveled off the post to Kuemper, who ultimately directed it into his own net.

I still don’t fully understand it, but the Penguins will take a goal no matter what. Regardless, Michael Bunting played another really solid and committed game for the Penguins. He now has 15 points in his last 20 games – tied with Rakell for third-most in that time – and he has had four shots on goal.

But my favorite play of his on Tuesday came midway through the third period. The Penguins got a scoring opportunity around Kuemper in the blue paint, and Malkin made a few pushes to try and knock the puck loose. Kevin Fiala shot from behind at Malkin and Bunting directly behind Fiala.

That’s great to see not only with this team, but especially with Bunting. When he does things like that, he’s at his best. And that’s definitely where he’s playing right now.

– Other than that, Sidney Crosby was the best player in this game, and it wasn’t particularly close.

He had six shots on goal in twelve attempts. His line was everywhere. He read well. Hard foresight. And his pass to Grzelcyk for the equalizer at the end of the third period was great:

This guy wants to score. Bad. If he plays at this level, the goals will come in droves once one finally comes in for him.

“I think he’s so close,” Sullivan said. “He could have had three tonight. He could have had three in the third period alone. It’s a matter of time, it will go into the net for him.”

I asked Grzelcyk how important Crosby was to the team in this win.

“Amazing,” Grzelcyk said. “I know he’s probably a little frustrated that he didn’t score, but he played really well for us. Such a good player, has incredible vision…I know after playing against him for so many years, he always kept his head up, and he can pull guys on his back and put a lot of guys in coverage and find you , I mean, that play (on goal) was all his doing.”

– The Penguins are really starting to look like a formidable hockey team, and I’m not entirely convinced that’s a coincidence.

Your process looks completely different than it did a month ago. They beat playoff teams. They focus on defense and don’t miss any opportunities like they did at the beginning of the season, even if their best defensive man is unavailable. It seems like there’s a level of urgency showing in their game that wasn’t necessarily at the highest level before.

The Penguins will still need their power play in addition to a good goaltender to impress – Alex Nedeljkovic was a solid scorer for the Penguins on Tuesday, and Tristan Jarry has been very good lately – but as a unit they just look a lot tougher against them play.

It will take more than a hot streak in December to change this team’s prospects, even though they were briefly in a playoff spot before Ottawa beat the Kraken 3-0 late Tuesday.

But if they can maintain this level of attention to detail – and continue to get offensive and defensive contributions from top to bottom of their lineup – they should be in a pretty good position by the end of the season.