Last season, the Pittsburgh Penguins were the best comeback team in hockey.
Pittsburgh had more third period comeback victories than any other squad in the National Hockey League.
So what do they do to open up the pre-season in defense of their Stanley Cup Championship this year?
Go down 3-0 in the third period at home before rolling back to defeat the Columbus Blue Jackets in overtime, 5-4 (OT).
The Penguins dressed a mixed lineup typical of most exhibition games last night. Sidney Crosby, Chris Kunitz, Jordan Staal, Ruslan Fedotenko and Pascal Dupuis were among the returning forwards on the ice.
On defense, Sergei Gonchar was in the lineup, as was new free agent acquisition Jay McKee.
Marc-Andre Fleury started and played the first two periods in goal.
Despite the presence of those guys, former Penguin netminder and current Blue Jacket Matheiu Garon pitched a shut out for the first two periods before he was replaced for the start of the third by Dan LaCosta.
Not coincidentally, perhaps, things went downhill for Columbus from there.
Crosby began the comeback with two goals in the first few minutes of the period, and then Chris Connor tied the game at 3 about 5 minutes in.
With about 2 minutes left in the game, Columbus took a 4-3 lead, only to have Chris Kunitz again tie the game 17 seconds later and force overtime.
In the extra frame, Crosby intercepted a pass behind the Blue Jackets goal and quickly centered it to Kunitz, who buried it for his second goal of the game less than a minute into OT to complete the comeback victory.
True to their style, the Penguins outshot the Blue Jackets 42-28. They also played fairly physically, with both winger Eric Godard and defenseman Deryk Engelland scoring decisive first period fight victories, and Eric Tangradi -- getting his first game action in a Penguin uniform, and alongside Crosby in RW Bill Guerin's place to boot -- threw his body around all over the ice.
Tangradi didn't look entirely out of place on the top line last night, either. He finished with 2 helpers, assisting on both of Crosby's early 3rd period goals.
I still believe -- as most do -- that Tangradi will start the season in Wilkes-Barre. The Penguins are hoping he dominates at that level to the point that they won't have a choice but to make him one of their first in-season call-ups.
Another guy that held his own last night was first round draft pick Simon Despres.
Despres was paired with Gonchar and didn't look completely out of place filling that role. Expect him to get a lot of action in the pre-season, but not to make the roster. He'll likely go back to junior for one more year.
The Penguins' next exhibition game is on Friday -- again at home -- against the Toronto Maple Leafs. Then they go to the road next week to continue their exhibition slate. 3 of those games (I believe Monday, Tuesday and Saturday) will be televised on the NHL Network.
More later this week, when I'll talk in more detail about some of the newcomers and bubble players in Penguins' camp this year, including one of their training camp tryout invitees, LW Ryan Bayda, who is fast gaining the head coach as a fan.
Let's Go Pens.
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