Sutter keys rally, Penguins top Bruins

Brandon Sutter (16) of the Pittsburgh Penguins celebrates with Sidney Crosby (87) after scoring the game winning goal against the Boston Bruins at Consol Energy Center in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, on Tuesday. The Penguins won 3-2. (AFP)

Agencies/Pittsburgh

Brandon Sutter tapped the puck with his stick and saw the NHL’s leading scorer streaking to the net more than ready to play the hero.

Instead, the typically deferential Pittsburgh Penguins centre decided to fire it himself. The result provided the biggest moment of the season for Sutter and his red-hot team.Sutter’s wrist shot slipped past Boston’s Anton Khudobin with 2:03 remaining to cap a furious third-period rally as Pittsburgh slipped by the Bruins 3-2 on Tuesday night for its sixth straight win. Sutter had already tied the game at 2 a few minutes earlier and found himself in nearly the exact same spot on the ice following a Boston turnover that allowed Sutter and superstar teammate Sidney Crosby to break in two-on-one.

Crosby had his stick in the air ready to fire but the pass never came. Instead the puck zipped past Khudobin and into the net for Sutter’s eighth goal of the year.‘’It’s read and react, it happens pretty quick,’’ Sutter said. ‘’But I think Sid will be all right for a day. I don’t think he’s too worried about it.’’

After the Bruins put the clamps on the NHL’s top offence for most of the game’s first 50 minutes, clogging shooting lanes and preventing the Penguins from turning things into an end-to-end sprint, Crosby was simply happy for to survive.

‘’I think we just believed if we kept going we were eventually going to get it in,’’ Crosby said. ‘’It seemed like it took forever ... but that’s a big win for us.’’