Jake Guentzel broke a 37-minute shot drought to score the winning goal in the final minutes as the Pittsburgh Penguins beat the Nashville Predators 5-3 in Game 1 of the Stanley Cup Final on Monday night.
The Penguins jumped out to a 3-0 first-period lead on goals by Evgeni Malkin, Conor Sheary and then Nick Bonino, when the puck went in off Nashville’s Mattias Ekholm. The defending Cup champions then didn’t have a shot for exactly 37 minutes as the Predators roared back to tie the score at 3.
Nashville got goals from Ryan Ellis, Colton Sissons and Frederick Gaudreau as it dominated Pittsburgh in the second period and most of the third. A waved-off goal by P.K. Subban in the first period on a coach’s challenge loomed large when Guentzel beat Predators goaltender Pekka Rinne with 3:17 left in the third on the Penguins’ ninth shot.
Bonino sealed it with an empty-netter.
Pittsburgh had the fewest shots by a winning team in a Cup Final game with 12.
