Crosby scores 500th, Penguins rally past Flyers 5-4 in OT
PITTSBURGH — Sidney Crosby scored his 500th goal and Pittsburgh teammate Kris Letang capped a late rally to lift the Penguins past the Philadelphia Flyers 5-4 in overtime Tuesday night.
Crosby became the 46th player in NHL history to reach the 500-goal milestone when he b eat Carter Hart from the goal line on the power play at 16:34 of the first period to give Pittsburgh a 2-1 lead. Crosby’s teammates poured over the bench in a raucous celebration after the 34-year-old joined Hall of Famer Mario Lemieux as the only Penguins in franchise history with 500 career goals.
Still, Pittsburgh needed far more than its captain to fend off the last-place Flyers.
Jake Guentzel and Chad Ruhwedel scored 18 seconds apart in the third period to erase a two-goal deficit, and Letang’s wrist shot by Hart 31 seconds into OT gave the Penguins their fourth straight win.
Dominik Simon also scored for Pittsburgh, and Casey DeSmith stopped 23 shots as the Penguins stayed atop the Metropolitan Division by sending the Flyers to their third consecutive loss.
Scott Laughton, Nick Seeler and Justin Braun scored during a second-period outburst as the Flyers took command. Hart finished with 29 saves but lost his third straight start when he couldn’t get a handle on Letang’s game-winner. Claude Giroux also scored for Philadelphia, which saw itself on the wrong end of a signature Crosby moment once again.
Crosby’s been one of the league’s standard-bearers from the moment he arrived with the top pick in the 2006 draft and he’s tormented the Flyers with regularity for most of his 16 seasons. With the Penguins on the man advantage late in the first period, he perched himself along the goal line, took a cross-ice feed from longtime teammate Evgeni Malkin and fired a wrist shot to Hart’s short side that handcuffed the goalie and smacked into the back of the net.
The three-time Stanley Cup winner and future Hall of Famer — who refused to talk about reaching such rarified air before it happened — broke into a wide smile as his parents and the rest of the sellout crowd erupted.
Perhaps it was fitting the primary assist went to Malkin — the franchise’s other pillar for the better part of the last two decades — and that it came against the Flyers. A full 10% (50) of Crosby’s career goals have come against Philadelphia. His marker made the Penguins the sixth franchise in league history with two 500-goal scorers, joining Montreal (which has three), Chicago, Detroit, Los Angeles and the New York Islanders.
The crowd chanted Crosby’s name after the goal and gave him another loud ovation during a stoppage in the second period that included a videotaped congratulatory message from Lemieux, whom Crosby famously roomed with when he entered the league as a fresh-faced 18-year-old.
Lemieux’s shoutout noted there would be “many more” from Crosby. True, but not on Tuesday night as the Flyers, who entered play in last place in the Metropolitan Division a full 30 points behind the front-running Penguins, summoned the kind of response they’ve largely lacked during a forgettable season.
Laughton tied the game 57 seconds into the second period when he jumped on a loose puck in the slot and fired it by DeSmith. Seeler gave the Flyers the lead with a laser from the point at 10:47 of the second for just the third goal of his career and first since 2019 when he played for Minnesota.
Braun made it a two-goal advantage late in the second when his long drive from the blue line deflected off Penguins defenseman Marcus Pettersson and into the net for his fourth of the season.
Yet it ultimately wasn’t enough as Guentzel and Ruhwedel — who is 492 goals behind Crosby — drew Pittsburgh even late in regulation before Letang won it.
UP NEXT
Flyers: Begin an eight-game homestand Thursday against Washington.
Penguins: Visit the Toronto Maple Leafs on Thursday.
