Tommy Novak scored two goals, including the game-winner at 1:33 of overtime, and also had an assist to give the Pittsburgh Penguins a wild 6-5 victory over the visiting Montreal Canadiens on Saturday night.
Evgeni Malkin, who finished with a goal and two assists, crossed a pass past Montreal defenseman Mike Matheson to Novak at the bottom of the right circle on a 2-on-1 break and Novak roofed a wrist shot over goaltender Jakub Dobes for the game-winner.
Erik Karlsson and Kris Letang each had two assists and Ben Kindel, Declan Carlile and Samuel Girard also scored goals for Pittsburgh, which won despite blowing a 5-1 lead. Arturs Silovs made 20 saves.
Sidney Crosby had an assist, the 1,109th of his career, moving him into a tie with Joe Thornton for seventh most in NHL history.
Nick Suzuki had a goal and three assists, Cole Caufield scored two goals, Chris Kreider and Ivan Demidov each had a goal and an assist and Lane Hutson chipped in with three assists for Montreal. Dobes finished with 24 saves.
Montreal, which opened the season with a 3-2 victory at Toronto, jumped out to a 1-0 lead at the 3:49 mark of the first period when Caufield snapped a wrist shot from the right circle inside the far left post.
Pittsburgh tied it on a power-play goal by Malkin, who chipped in a rebound of a Kris Letang shot for his second goal.
The Penguins then scored four consecutive goals to start the second period to take a 5-1 lead. Carlile started the blitz 32 seconds into the period with a wrist shot from the top of the right circle that beat Dobes on his glove side. Girard followed when he roofed a backhand pass from Crosby from the low slot. Novak then finished a 2-on-1 rush with a wrist shot off an Egor Chinakov cross, and Kindel made it 5-1 with a power-play goal, redirecting a point shot by Karlsson into the top right corner of the net.
Suzuki cut the lead to 5-2 just before the end of the period when he split a pair of defenders and fired a shot over Silovs’ right shoulder. Caufield got his second goal of the game early in the third period with a wrist shot from the high slot to close the gap to two goals.
The Canadiens then scored twice in the final 68 seconds to earn a point and force overtime, the first by Kreider and the second by Demidov off a Suzuki crossing pass with 44 seconds to go.
–Field Level Media
