Evgeni Malkin's milestone goal helps the Penguins to a wild OT win over Buffalo

Pittsburgh Penguins forward Evgeni Malkin scored his 500th career goal in a wild 6-5 overtime win over the Buffalo Sabers on Wednesday at PPG Paints Arena.

The score dropped 3 minutes, 26 seconds into the third period, giving the Penguins their first lead of the contest.

Forward Sidney Crosby scored the winning goal at 1:38 of overtime. It was his first goal of the season.

“I don’t want to be here for the next two years and just play my game, just score 500 goals and then do nothing,” Malkin said Sept. 19 in Cranberry. “I want to be here to win.”

Malkin scored his milestone, giving the Penguins a 4-3 lead.

As a power play opportunity expired, Crosby hit a backhand pass from the Sabers' end boards to the front of the goal crease, where Malkin fired a forehand shot as he fell to the ice. Malkin retrieved the puck while lying on his back and fired another forehand shot over the right leg of goaltender Ukko-Pekka Lukkonen.

Crosby scored the only assist on goal. Crosby has assisted more Malkin goals than any other player, assisting 140 of them. Kris Letang prepared 87, followed by Phil Kessel (58), Sergei Gonchar (39) and James Neal (38).

Malkin joins franchise colleagues Mario Lemieux and Crosby as the only lifetime Penguins players to reach the 500-goal mark. The Penguins and Montreal Canadiens are the only teams to have three players score 500 goals for them. Montreal's 500-goal scorers are Guy Lafleur, Jean Beliveau and Maurice Richard.

Malkin is also the 48th NHL player to reach .500.

Sabers forward JJ Peterka tied the score at 4-4 at 10:16 of the third period with a wrister from the right wing. Then the visitors regained the lead 40 seconds later when forward Ryan McLeod scored his first goal with a wrist shot above the Penguins' left circle.

With goaltender Joel Blomqvist brought in for an extra attacker, Penguins forward Rickard Rakell was credited with his third goal at 19:14 of the third period when he caught the rebound of a Malkin shot into the goal to force overtime.

Crosby's game winner came on the power play.

It looked like the Penguins wouldn't get the win early as starting goaltender Tristan Jarry was substituted after allowing three goals on five shots in just 11:33 minutes. He was replaced by Blomqvist, who recorded the win. His record improved to 2-1-0 after stopping 26 of 28 shots.

It took the Sabers all of 43 seconds to take the lead when forward Tage Thompson scored his third goal of the season after a clumsy turnover from Jarry.

After stopping a Sabers dump-in on his own end boards, Jarry failed to notice Thompson forechecking and lost possession. As Jarry attempted to return to the crease, Thompson pushed the puck away from linemate Alex Tuch and Penguins defenseman Erik Karlsson and hit a backhander from the right side of the cage past Jarry's left skate.

Sabers forward Jordan Greenway found a more conventional way to score, simply firing a puck past Jarry's glove at 3:08 of the opening period for his second goal.

After Karlsson lost the ball in the neutral zone, former Penguins forward Jason Zucker collected the puck near the Penguins bench and backhanded it from the other boards. The collision escaped Karlsson, as did Greenway, who raced past the defender, won the ball and lifted a seemingly fleeing baller to the other side, which bounced off the bottom of Jarry's glove and deflected into the cage.

Forward Bryan Rust's first goal at 11:01 of the first period got the Penguins on the scoreboard during a power play sequence.

After capturing the attack zone on the left wing, Rust backhanded a pass into the top left circle for linemate Sidney Crosby, who left a drop pass for Malkin. Sabers forward Zach Benson managed to block the initial shot, but couldn't stop Malkin from firing another wrist shot from the slot after the rebound. Luukkonen missed Malkin, but allowed a rebound to the left of the cage, where Rust put the puck up the ice and fired in an easy forehand shot. Malkin and Crosby claimed assists. For Crosby it was the 1,600th. Career point.

The celebration of that achievement lasted all of 32 seconds as Peterka beat Jarry for his first goal.

After some sort of tackle on Penguins defenseman Jack St. Ivany, Sabers defenseman Bowen Byram made a subtle forehand pass from the right circle to the left circle for Peterka, who fired a wrist shot past Jarry's blocker on the opposite side.

Penguins forward Drew O'Connor scored the team's first shorthanded goal of the season (and his second overall) at 9:12 of the second frame.

The Sabers challenged the coach for an offside sequence, but the officials found no evidence of wrongdoing and assessed the visitors a delay of game penalty.

Penguins forward Jesse Puljujarvi tied the score in spectacular fashion with his first goal at 15:20 of the second period.

Entering the offensive zone on the left wing, Penguins forward Lars Eller caught up with Sabers defenseman Mattias Samuelsson and chipped a pass to open up the ice in the goal crease, where Puljujarvi gained possession with his forehand the backhand moved and a shot from Luukkonen's blocker shot into the goal in a display that looked like it belonged on TikTok.

Note: The Penguins sent rookie forward Rutger McGroarty to Wilkes-Barre/Scranton of the American Hockey League.