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The Penguins got out to a solid start in the first period and maintained that momentum throughout the second period against the Avalanche on Sunday, March 24th at the Ball Arena. Colorado had been down 4-0 before rallying to tie the game and forcing overtime, where Jonathan Drouin scored the game-winning goal for a 5-4 victory. Sidney Crosby had a four-point game, with one goal and three assists. Nathan MacKinnon has the second-longest season-opening home streak in NHL history (76 points, 28 goals, 48 assists), trailing only Wayne Gretzky. P.O Joseph scored the first goal of the season for Pittsburgh.

O’Connor – Crosby – Rust

Bunting – Malkin – Rakell

Smith – Eller – Puustinen

Bemstrom – Acciari – Puljujarvi

Joseph – Letang

Pettersson – Karlsson

Ludvig – St. Ivany

Nedeljkovic

Jarry

Avalanche lineup against the Devils:

Nichushkin – MacKinnon – Rantanen

Lehkonen – Mittelstadt – Drouin

Wood – Colton – Parise

Duhaime – Trenin – Cogliano

Toews – Makar

Girard – Manson

Johnson – Walker

Georgiev

Annunen

Jesse Puljujarvi scored the first goal of the game to give Pittsburgh a 1-0 lead with his second of the season at 12:07 of the first frame. He took a loose puck a sent it in past Alexandar Georgiev. With 4:49 remaining, Bryan Rust extended the Penguins’ lead to 2-0 after receiving a pass from Sidney Crosby. Rust had gone around Josh Manson, cut across the crease, and crammed it in.

Late into the middle at 6:13, Sidney Crosby made it a 3-0 lead for Pittsburgh with his 34th goal of the season at the right side of the net when he deflected Valtteri Puustinen’s pass from the red line. Pierre-Olivier Joseph put the Penguins up 4-0 when he sent his first of the season through a screen from inside the blue line… Sean Walker scored to put Colorado on the board just 25 seconds later from above the right circle with a wrister he sent through a screen. With just seconds remaining in the second, Yakov Trenin struck his 11th of the season to cut the Penguins’ lead to 4-2 with a deflection of Brandon Duhaime’s original shot.

At 16:28 in the third period, Jonathan Drouin one-timed Nathan MacKinnon’s pass at the right face-off dot, cutting the lead to 4-3. MacKinnon tied it 4-4 at 4:38 with a one-timer off Drouin’s crossing feed, short side on Tristan Jarry.

Jonathan Drouin’s second goal of the game and 14th of the season came 54 seconds into overtime. He waited out Alex Nedeljkovic’s poke check after defeating Kris Letang on the outside for a 5-4 victory.

He’s on how the squad performed and the loss: “We played hard, but I don’t think we were on our toes enough. They pushed, and I thought we were a little too passive – as you could see from the first half of

– With a goal and two assists, Nathan MacKinnon extended his point streak to 18 games and his home streak to 34. He has 122 points this season (44 goals, 78 assists), moving past Joe Sakic (120 points in 1995-96) for the most in a season in Avalanche history. Peter Stastny holds the franchise record with 139 for the Quebec Nordiques in 1981-82.

– Jonathan Drouin scored two goals and recorded an assist.