In a low-scoring, tight-checking game it usually ends up being one bounce or break that seals the deal. Tonight, that one play came 31 seconds into overtime.
Carter Camper left his skates at the Penguins blue line to keep a puck onside, fed it to the middle to Jordan Caron and fell down. Luckily for Camper, he got back up in time to get in position for the rebound and slid one past Brad Thiessen to send to the Bruins bench onto the ice.
The Penguins are on the brink of elimination after falling 2-1 in overtime to the Providence Bruins tonight. There aren't many teams in the history of the American Hockey League that have come back to win a seven game series after dropping the first three games. For the Penguins, the comeback has to start on Friday night in Game Four.
"We have to turn the page quick on this one," head coach John Hynes said, "and continue to build off the things that we did tonight that gave us a chance to have the opportunity to win the game and make sure we are ready to win a game on Friday."
After a scoreless first period, the Bruins took a 1-0 lead on a goal by Jared Knight after the Bruins worked a puck out from behind the Penguins net. The Penguins answered about seven and a half minutes later when Cody Wild's shot from the point through traffic was rebounded in by Trevor Smith. Chad Kolarik added an assist on the play.
From there the Penguins really took it to the Bruins, getting shots in on Niklas Svedberg and spending a majority of the second half of the game in the offensive zone. Svedberg still had trouble handling his rebounds but the Penguins couldn't get another one past him in regulation.
"We need to a better job of getting pucks to the net," defenseman Joey Mormina said. "Going into the weekend we need to have a greater focus on going to the net and getting some traffic."
It was clear that the Penguins played much better tonight than they did in the first two games in Rhode Island. They played their game. They got pucks in deep, worked the Bruins down-low in a grind-them-out type fashion that gave them much success during the season. They say the fourth game is the hardest one to win and Trevor Smith mimicked that idea when I caught up with post-game.
"It is what is," Smith said. "We're in a tough spot, but we got some character guys and we got a lot of fight in us still."
Coming back from a 3-0 deficit isn't going to be easy for the Penguins against the top seed in the Eastern Conference. It all starts Friday night in Game Four.
The Penguins will have practice tomorrow morning so expect the next form of an update to come then.
I'll leave with this quote from Mormina:
"We have an opportunity Friday night to come out in front our home fans and get one win. It starts with one. You can't win four games in one night. Friday, we are playing 60 minutes and our goal is to win the 60."
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