Crosby comes through in shootout for Pens

Pittsburgh beat the Detroit Red Wings, 2-1.

PITTSBURGH (AP) — While the Pittsburgh Penguins are unbeaten in shootouts this season, Evgeni Malkin usually skips them. He’s tried skating fast and skating slow, shooting backhanders and forehanders and between the pads, all with little success.

Maybe beating the much-disliked Detroit Red Wings with an excellent move will change the reigning NHL scoring champion’s outlook about one-on-one competition.

Sidney Crosby scored in regulation and teamed with Malkin to beat Detroit goalie Jimmy Howard in the shootout, and the Penguins defeated the Red Wings 2-1 on Sunday in the rivals’ first game since Pittsburgh won Game 7 of the Stanley Cup finals in Detroit.

“It’s a lot of fun playing against them,” Penguins forward Jordan Staal said. “They’re always big games and they’re always tough.”

Daniel Cleary’s deflection of Brad Stuart’s slap shot midway through the third period sent the game to overtime, where Pittsburgh survived playing short-handed for the final 1:21.

Detroit’s Pavel Datsyuk and Jason Williams failed in the shootout against Penguins goalie Marc-Andre Fleury, who made 23 saves. Before being denied, Datsyuk was converting at a 52.3 percent rate (23 of 44), the fourth best among all skaters since the NHL adopted the shootout in 2005. Malkin’s 20 percent (5 of 25) was among the worst, and he was unsuccessful on his only previous attempt this season.

After Crosby put a hard backhander under the crossbar, Malkin appeared to be skating in slow motion before sneaking the puck past Howard on another backhander following a succession of fakes and feints.

“I think Geno should have lots of confidence [in shootouts],” Crosby said. “He has great moves and that one was a pretty good example of it.”

Howard was strong throughout despite losing, stopping 46 shots for the second game in a row as Detroit was in position to win despite being outshot 47-24.

The Penguins are 7-0 in shootouts, while Detroit is 4-6.

“I wonder why?” Howard said of Pittsburgh’s shootout success. “They got Malkin and Crosby.”

Pittsburgh held on to force the shootout after Sergei Gonchar was called for hooking during Valtteri Filppula’s failed breakaway at 3:39 of overtime. As Detroit skated with a 4 on 3 advantage, Fleury made a strong save on Henrik Zetterberg’s drive from the right circle and Nicklas Lidstrom’s slap shot was deflected during the final 10 seconds.

“We were on our heels a little bit, I think we gave them too much respect,” Detroit’s Niklas Kronwall said.