Penguins Stars Reach Milestones in Defeating the Sabres in Overtime

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Two of the Pittsburgh Penguins star players reached milestones on Wednesday night, and then one of them scored in overtime to help the Penguins defeat the Buffalo Sabres 6-5.

Sidney Crosby scored the overtime game-winner on a power-play goal after the Sabres’ Tage Thompson was whistled for tripping. It was his 91st career game-winning goal, which tied Wayne Gretzky and Mark Recchi for 21st place in NHL history. It was also his 21st career overtime goal, trailing only Alex Ovechkin (26) for the most in NHL history.

In the first period, Crosby picked up a secondary assist (and 1,600th point of his career) on the power-play goal by Bryan Rust, who tapped in a rebound from Evgeni Malkin. The 37-year-old Penguins captain is the first NHL player to achieve the milestone since Jaromir Jagr had an assist for the Philadelphia Flyers in a 2-1 win at the Boston Bruins on Oct. 6, 2011, and is the 10th skater in NHL history with 1,600 points.

In the third period, Malkin scored the 500th goal of his career to join Mario Lemieux (690) and Crosby (592) as the third player in franchise history to reach the milestone. He is the fourth active player to do so, following Ovechkin (853), Crosby, and Steven Stamkos (555). He became the eighth player born and trained outside North America to score 500 goals. The others are Ovechkin (853), Jagr (766), Teemu Selanne (684), Jari Kurri (601), Mats Sundin (564), Marian Hossa (525) and Peter Bondra (503).

In addition to the milestones, the back-and-forth contest headed to overtime when Rickard Rakell scored with 46 seconds remaining in regulation to tie the game 5-5. The only other player this season to score a tying goal in the final minute of regulation is Justin Faulk (59:13) on Oct. 10.

JJ Peterka scored twice for the Sabres, who also got goals from Jordan Greenway, Ryan Mcleod and Thompson. Peterka collected his fifth career multi-goal game, the third-most by a German-born and trained player before age 23. Only Tim StĂĽtzle (14) and Leon Draisaitl (6) have more.

The Penguins also had goals from Drew O’Connor and Jesse Puljujarvi. Joel Blomqvist stopped 26 of 28 shots in relief after Tristan Jarry was pulled.

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