SHOOTOUT WIN! Penguins Overcomes Themselves and Earn Crucial Win.

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SHOOTOUT WIN! Penguins Overcomes Themselves and Earn Crucial Win.

Pittsburgh Penguins Game 5-4 SO win Winnipeg Jets

Vince Comunale · Pittsburgh Hockey Now

Sat, Mar 21, 2026 ·

5 min read

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PITTSBURGH— Another failed challenge for goaltender interference, another short-handed goal against, and another shootout was certainly not the formula that would seem to equal success, but somehow the Pittsburgh Penguins (35-18-16) still managed to down the Winnipeg Jets (28-29-12) 5-4 in a shooutut at PPG Paints Arena on Saturday afternoon.- The Penguins are an NHL best 8-2-3 against the Central Division and an impressive 16-7-6 against the Western Conference. One of the two losses versus the Central Division came in Winnipeg on November 1, a 5-2 loss.

On just their second shot of the game, the Penguins opened the scoring when Egor Chinakhov (15) took an Evgeni Malkin pass and then did the rest, turning Winnipeg defenseman Dylan Demelo inside out and taking a sharp left turn across the slot, wristing the puck past off-balance Jets goaltender Connor Hellebuyck to give the Penguins an early 1-0 lead just 1:06 into the game. It was Chinakhov's 100th career point in the NHL.

In the middle of the announcement of the Chinakhov goal, and on the very next Pittsburgh shot, the Penguins struck again. Rickard Rakell (14) took a beautiful Bryan Rust pass and tapped it past Hellebuyck to put the Penguins up by a pair. The goal came just 56 seconds after the Chinakhov goal.

The frantic pace to start the game continued when Winnipeg scored a controversial goal. After a failed point shot from defenseman Parker Wotherspoon , the Jets took off in transition the other way. Erik Karlsson gave chase as Jets forward Brad Lambert got a clean shot on Penguins netminder Arturs Silovs . The resulting rebound landed on the stick of Winnipeg's Morgan Barron . Barron's attempted shot then popped up in the air just as Karlsson caught up to the Winnipeg forward. The puck popped high in the air just as Karlsson, Barron, and Silovs all collided with each other, leaving Silovs well out of the net. As all that was happening, the puck dropped to the ice and into the net. It appeared that Barron had pushed Karlsson into Silovs, so Penguins' head coach Dan Muse challenged the call for goaltender interference. However, the call on the ice stood and the Penguins were assessed a delay of game penalty. It was the Penguins eighth unsuccessful challenge for goaltender interference this season (0-8).

The Penguins got their first power play opportunity of the game, but it would be the Jets that would score. Karlsson took a shot from the point that got deflected and popped up in the air and onto the stick of Adam Lowry who broke in two-on-one with Cole Koepke (6). Karlsson being the only man back tried to break up the two-on-one, but Lowry floated a pass right between the legs of Karlsson to Koepke, who then deeked Silovs to tie the game at two. It was the 11th short-handed goal allowed by the Penguins this season.

Erik Karlsson (10) continued his torrent scoring pace to put the Penguins back ahead, 3-2. After a spectacular tic-tac-toe passing display between Chinakhov, Parker Wotherspoon, and finally Karlsson, the Penguins' defenseman absolutely wired a wrist shot off the left post and in at 15:22 of the second.

The back-and-forth nature of the game continued into the third period. First it was Jets defenseman Neal Pionk (3) wristing a puck from the point off the right post to knot the game at three at the 4:04 mark of the third. It then appeared that the Jets took the lead just 35 seconds later when Mark Scheifele wristed a puck off the crossbar and in, but the Penguins challenged again, this time for a high stick on the puck. The challenge was successful this time, as it was determined that Winnipeg forward Alex Iafallo had touched the puck with a high stick prior to Scheifele scoring and the score remained 3-3.

While the Jets thought they had taken a 4-3 lead earlier in the period, they actually did go ahead 4-3 on a seemingly harmless wrist shot from the slot off the stick of Winnipeg's Brad Lambert (2) that alluded Silovs' glove.

Karlsson continued his elite play with another elite shot to tie the game once again. Taking a Rust drop pass, Karlsson (11) unleashed a wrist shot from the right circle that tucked inside the left post to knot the game at four. It was his fourth goal in his past three games. Since February 28, only the Lightning 's Nikita Kucherov and the Avalanche's Nathan MacKinnon have as many points as Karlsson's 19.

For a 22nd time this season for the Penguins, the game went into overtime. The Penguins dominated play to start the extra frame, including a failed two-on-none and a wide open look for Sidney Crosby , they could not solve Hellebuyck. The Penguins even got a power play in overtime, but could not convert, sending the game to a dreaded shootout for a twelfth time this season.

Almost shockingly, the Penguins bested the Jets in the shootout with Silovs stopping all three Winnipeg shooters, with Crosby and Rakell scoring for the Penguins, "improving" their shooutout record to 2-10 on the season.

The Penguins will have little time to celebrate the victory, as they will be back in action on Sunday afternoon against the division-leading Carolina Hurricanes . It will be the third meeting between the two teams in the past 13 days.