Acciari sparks rally, Crosby caps off fifth straight win

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Sidney Crosby and Erik Karlsson celebrate Crosby’s overtime goal Sunday in Columbus.

From the perspectives of Dan Muse and Tommy Novak, there was one specific turning point in the Penguins’ 5-4 overtime victory over the Blue Jackets this afternoon at Nationwide Arena, a win that occurred in come-from-behind fashion to extend a season-best win streak — their longest since November 2023 — to five games. 

It wasn’t this tying goal by Rickard Rakell with 12.8 seconds to go in regulation …

… that helped set the stage for the breakaway goal off the stick of the captain, Sidney Crosby, two minutes into overtime: 

It wasn’t any particular defensive play or the impressive goaltending conducted down the stretch by Arturs Silovs, who still earned well-deserved post-game praise from his head coach and teammates after making some crucial saves, especially in the third period to help keep the Penguins within reach. 

Both Muse and Novak credited Noel Acciari for this second-period goal that sparked the rally after the Penguins went down 4-1 early in the same period: 

“When Cookie (Acciari) gets the goal at the end of the second, going down two to enter the third is manageable and doable for us,” Novak said. “Huge goal by him there.” 

That goal by Acciari, one made possible by a back-hand blue-line feed from Connor Dewar, came with just over three minutes left in a second period in which the Penguins outshot the Blue Jackets by a hefty 21-6 margin. The visitors won the overall shot battle, 43-25, and finished with a whopping 92 attempts. 

Acciari capitalized on an opportunity at a crucial time. It changed the mentality of a group that, despite the offensive chances and the number of shots they pestered Columbus goaltender Jet Greaves with, looked down and out. The Blue Jackets scored two first-period goals in the span of 27 seconds as part of a stretch of four unanswered goals, the last of which came less than a minute into the second period, and there didn’t seem to be any answer on the horizon. 

Then, Acciari wristed that shot past Greaves on his blocker side to change the complexion of the game by sparking a third-period effort that resulted in an 11-7 shot advantage, a power-play goal by Novak and Rakell’s goal with Silovs pulled and the six-on-five advantage in effect. 

“I think the timing of Acciari’s goal, that really carried over there into the third period,” Muse said. “I think there was a lot to like. I thought we were in the offensive zone a lot, early in the game I thought we didn’t do nearly a good enough job of getting to the net front. Credit to them. They did a good job of boxing us out and they made it hard. But I thought we were starting to do a better job there as the game went on. We stuck with it.” 

There was certainly more to be desired from the Penguins’ overall performance over 60-plus minutes here today. They endured what Novak described as a “sleepy” first period and saw some costly mistakes turn into opportunities and goals. They were fortunate that they were resilient enough to come away with two points instead of finishing off their weekend with a disheartening loss that would have resembled some of the ones they suffered during the stretch of nine losses in 10 games that preceded the Christmas break. 

This time around, it wasn’t the Penguins that were letting a multi-goal lead go to waste. On this day, they were the ones on the winning end of a hard-fought rally, one that helped them continue their winning ways heading into this week’s home matchups against the Devils and Flames. 

“We hung in there,” Crosby said. “I think it was a great test and we found a way.”