Sidney Crosby recorded his 14th career hat trick, and Blake Lizotte scored the go-ahead goal with 1:43 remaining in the third period, lifting the visiting Pittsburgh Penguins to a 5-3 victory over the Dallas Stars on Saturday.
Crosby’s heroics allowed the Penguins to overcome the second career hat trick of Evgenii Dadonov. The latter’s first hat trick also came at the expense of Pittsburgh on Feb. 24, 2018.
The Penguins took advantage of a collision between Dallas defensemen Cody Ceci and Thomas Harley, allowing Danton Heinen to set up Lizotte for a one-timer.
Crosby capped his hat trick by scoring into the empty net for his 13th career 30-goal season.
The superstar captain finished with three goals and an assist to extend his point streak to 12 games. Crosby tied the longest point streak in NHL history by a player age 37 or older.
Bryan Rust scored his 200th career goal and Tristan Jarry made 21 saves for the Penguins (31-34-12, 74 points), who snapped a four-game road losing skid.
After going 17 straight games without a goal, Dadonov scored midway into the first period and converted on the power play in the second before giving Dallas a 3-2 lead at 3:11 of the third. Harley skated along the blue line and shoveled the puck toward the net before Dadonov neatly backhanded a shot past Jarry.
Former Penguin Casey DeSmith finished with 35 saves for the Stars (50-22-4, 104 points), who saw three separate streaks come to a halt. Dallas had won seven in a row in addition to recording a 10-game point streak (8-0-2) and 12-game home point streak (11-0-1).
Crosby flipped a shot that sailed under the crossbar to open the scoring at 4:16 of the first period before Dadonov did the same nearly 6 1/2 minutes later.
Dadonov gave Dallas a 2-1 lead after banging home a backhanded centering feed from Matt Duchene with 7:24 left in the second period. An unmarked Crosby, however, converted a tic-tac-toe passing sequence to forge a tie 20 seconds into the third.
Rust answered Dadonov’s third goal by backhanding the puck past DeSmith at 8:49 of the third period.
–Field Level Media
