Column: On mayhem, making amends, Malkin

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New York Rangers v Pittsburgh Penguins

The Penguins mob Marc-Andre Fleury after his save ended — for real — Saturday’s shootout. — GETTY IMAGES

DEJAN KOVACEVIC, DK ON PITTSBURGH SPORTS

The ending to the Penguins’ 3-2 shootout victory over the Rangers on Saturday night came amid such mayhem it might be best summarized by noting that the second word of this sentence actually should be pluralized.

Endings.

Because there were two: The Penguins lost, and then they won.

And unlike Dewey defeating Truman, this wasn’t a matter of faulty reporting but a matter of fact. At least for a minute or so.

“Crazy. So crazy,” Evgeni Malkin would describe the scene later. “We were all in locker room, and they tell us, ‘Go back! Go back!’ “

That crazy.

If you were inside Consol Energy Center, you still might not have believed what you witnessed. And not just because there’s an excellent chance you left before the contest was legitimately decided, fairly thinking that it already had been because, oh, you know, the winning shootout goal was pushed behind Marc-Andre Fleury by New York’s Dan Boyle, the final score was lit up on the big board, the final horn blew not once but twice, both benches emptied, Henrik Lundqvist was high-fiving all his fellow Rangers as they filed off, all three stars had been announced and, in what really should have sealed the deal, Dan Potash had set down his microphone because there would be no happy postgame interview with a home-team player.

Or had he?

While a myriad other elements to this ending(s) will be revisited for years to come, let history note now and forever that Root Sports never went to a commercial and that Potash, relentless in his pursuit of the excellent happy postgame interview, continued to man his station.

“We waited,” Potash explained to me, cool as ever in the aftermath. “Bibs was on top of it.”

That’s Bob Errey, and he sure was, from what I’ve heard. (There’s no TV audio in any working press box, only visual monitors.) He and Root not only stayed with the broadcast but also stayed on Boyle’s goal, showing replay after replay.

We’ll never know if that assisted the replay officials in Toronto, but we do know, definitively, that justice would be served: Boyle’s initial attempt on Fleury — a sweeping forehand shot after eluding a pokecheck — struck the post. Once that happens, according to Rule 24.2 in the NHL Official Rules book, “No goal can be scored on a rebound of any kind.”

From my own vantage point in the press box, a perch so high we frequently duck passenger jets, I saw a double-hit on the puck from Boyle. But, as might have been the case with referee Kelly Sutherland — who pointed to the net to signify the goal, then casually skated away — and most everyone in the building, I assumed that since Boyle was taking a spill while scoring and his skate was in the vicinity that he’d accidentally pushed the puck in that way. Mike Johnston saw it the same way from the Penguins’ bench, saying, “A few of us thought it was kicked in. But nobody really reacted on the ice, so we just went back to the room.”

Regardless, as you can see from the rule above, no rebound means no rebound. But that confusion is emblematic of the whole scene.

Here, on that note, is the whole scene:

So the Toronto officials called Consol, and the referees were summoned to the penalty timekeeper’s box to make contact. And while they did, Sidney Crosby emerged from the tunnel and skated out to join them.

“Me and Geno were at the back of our line coming off the ice, and we kept hearing the horn go off,” Crosby said. “But Dan was here in the tunnel and said it was a double-hit.”

Potash again!

“I think some of the guys might have had their stuff off, but … we went back out there and got it done,” Crosby continued. “Kind of a weird one, but we’re happy with how it turned out.”

By the time Sutherlund clicked on his mic and announced that the goal was invalid and the game would resume, exactly two minutes, 21 seconds had elapsed, time in which half the building had already filed for the exits, TVs changed channels, radios tuned out and news services worldwide, including this one, sent out the wrong score.

Well, it didn’t take Truman long to take care of Dewey from there: Brandon Sutter, the first shooter upon resumption, capped an overall excellent night by breezing a five-hole shot through Lundqvist, and Fleury got a glove on Rick Nash’s attempt to finish it for good.

Or as PA announcer Ryan Mill boomed to the crowd: “The final score — for real this time — the Pittsburgh Penguins 3, the New York Rangers 2!”

The Rangers somewhat carefully complained about the circumstance, if not the actual ruling.

Derek Stepan: “No excuses, but half the guys had their shirts off and sticks put away. It’s not easy coming into the room thinking you won, and then you have to go back.”

Lundqvist: “You think you have the two points and are relaxing, but then you have to go back. You have everything to lose, and they have everything to win.”

Eh. Not sure about that. The home team had to adjust, too.

“Brandon knew he was next in line to shoot, so he was probably more ready mentally than most,” Johnston said. “So the one I really give a lot of credit to is Flower because he came into the locker room thinking we’d lost and had to go right back out there and stop one of the best shooters in the league.”

Fleury had gone so far as to sit at his stall, remove his gloves, mask and sweater and, as he told it, he was fuming: “I was mad. Really mad. I had no clue about the double-hit. I was just mad I missed the poke.”

Swell, then. But here’s something else to consider about this night, also courtesy of the goaltender: “This was a good game. It was intense, it was close, felt kind of like a playoff game. And it was a good win for us, I think.”

It really was. And that shouldn’t get lost in the circus finish.

The Penguins competed, shot for shot, save for save, with an opponent that had just flattened them, 5-0, five days earlier at Madison Square Garden and, lest anyone forgets, knocked them out of the playoffs by overcoming a 3-1 series deficit. It looked for long stretches on this night that Lundqvist, in particular, was getting in their heads. But to the credit of all concerned, this was quite the counterpunch.

“We played a lot better than last time. That was definitely our worst game so far,” Johnston said. “I liked the way we rebounded. We wanted that. That’s important.”

Here’s what else shouldn’t get lost: Malkin has bought in.

Read whatever you wish into his erratic performances early this season, but make no mistake that he’s all in at this point. Friday in Toronto, he rushed to the defense of new linemate Patric Hornqvist by throwing down with Dion Phaneuf, then in this one delivered the check of the year at Consol — and a clean one at that — to send Dan Girardi into an alternate dimension.

The crowd got revved up, the Penguins got revved up, and it all started with the suddenly, strikingly combustible version of No. 71.

And no, I couldn’t help but ask him afterward:

Got all that?

Malkin is happy, he’s raising a storm every time he’s over the boards and, for all we know, he’s probably even looking forward to being interviewed. By Potash, of course.