Guentzel’s power-play goal lifts Penguins past Predators 6-4
By DAN SCIFO Associated Press
Jake Guentzel’s power-play goal with 1:03 remaining helped the Pittsburgh Penguins beat the Nashville Predators 6-4. Bryan Rust’s initial point shot missed the net, and Evgeni Malkin gathered the puck behind the net and gave it to Guentzel, who tucked it inside the left post for the winning goal.

Galchenyuk scores, Penguins thump ailing Predators 5-2
JIM DIAMOND Associated Press
Alex Galchenyuk scored his third goal of the season, Tristan Jarry made 30 saves and the Pittsburgh Penguins beat the Nashville Predators 5-2. Dominik Simon, Teddy Blueger, Bryan Rust and Juuso Riikola also scored for the Penguins, who have won five of six. Nashville goalie Pekka Rinne was pulled after allowing three goals on six shots. Juuse Saros stopped 17 of 19 shots in relief. Nashville defenseman Dan Hamhuis left in the first period after Galchenyuk’s wrist shot hit him in the face. Hamhuis hurried off the ice and down the tunnel, and the game was delayed while his blood was cleaned off the ice.

Faulk, Walker score as Blues beat Penguins 5-2
By JOE HARRIS Associated Press
ST. LOUIS (AP) — Nathan Walker didn’t have to wait long for a second chance to snap his scoreless drought.
Justin Faulk and Walker each scored for the first time with the Blues, and St. Louis beat the Pittsburgh Penguins 5-2 on Saturday night.
Jaden Schwartz had a goal and an assist and Ivan Barbashev and Mackenzie MacEachern also scored for the Blues, who won their third straight game and have points in their last four. Jordan Binnington made 29 saves and improved to 13-4-4.
“Second period wasn’t great, but I thought the first and third were good and we had everybody contributing tonight which is important for sure,” Blues coach Craig Berube said. “I’ve said this before: We need everybody to chip in goals and we did that tonight.”
Sam Lafferty and Kris Letang scored for the Penguins, who lost their second straight game. Matt Murray, playing for the first time since Nov. 7, made 22 saves.
Walker’s first goal since Oct. 7, 2017 broke a 1-1 tie for St. Louis with 5:59 left in the second period.
Walker swatted a pass by Schwartz that deflected off Dominik Kahun’s stick in mid-air, and the awkward shot short-hopped Murray to make it 2-1.
“It is actually one thing I kind of worked on in the summer was batting pucks out of the air like that, trying to meet it when it hits the ice and I think I got a little bit lucky there as well,” Walker said.
Murray said he was fooled on the trick shot.
“It just bounced off the ice weird and no more than a foot and a half in the air just over my pad,” Murray said.
Walker, playing in just his second game since being called up from the Blues’ AHL affiliate in San Antonio, thought he had scored the night before against Dallas only to have the goal called back for an offsides call made after a review.
“It was a big goal,” Berube said of the one that counted. “I think it made us feel good about ourselves going into the third period.”
Barbashev made it 3-1 with his second goal in as many games, snapping a wrist shot into the upper left corner after taking a feed from Robert Thomas in the high slot at 2:54 of the third period.
MacEachern added to the Blues’ lead when he redirected Jacob De La Rose’s shot from the point at 7:09.
“I thought our guys did a much better job in the third period of digging in and just doing the little things,” Berube said.
Letang’s shot from the point deflected off Alex Pietrangelo into the net to cut the Penguins’ deficit to 4-2 with 6:57 left in the third.
Schwartz scored his seventh of the year late in the third.
Faulk made it 1-0 at the 7:52 mark of the first period with his first goal since April 6. Ryan O’Reilly stripped the puck from Jared McCann and fed it to Faulk, whose wrist shot went off Murray’s right pad and into the net.
“Obviously it took awhile,” said Faulk, who snapped a 27-game stretch without a goal. “I don’t think it’s the longest one of my career. None of them feel great, but it’s nice to get that first one in.”
Lafferty tied the game 1-1 at the 6:27 mark of the second period. Lafferty used his speed to get past Derrick Pouliot, creating a breakaway that was capped by a backhand-forehand move to beat a sprawling Binnington.
Penguins defenseman Brian Dumoulin left the game early in the first period with a lower-body injury and did not return.
“It happened in the first shift of the game, which makes it tough because now you’re going with five defensemen all night,” Penguins coach Mike Sullivan said. “I thought they fought hard. I thought we made some fatigue mistakes in the third period that maybe we wouldn’t have made if we have a guy like (Dumoulin).”
NOTES
It was the first of two meetings in four days between the Penguins and Blues. St. Louis travels to Pittsburgh on Wednesday for their final regular season meeting. … Both teams were playing their second game in as many nights. … Pittsburgh LW Jake Guentzel had his seven-game point streak snapped. … St. Louis LW David Perron and C Brayden Schenn each extended their point streaks to seven games with assists on Schwartz’s goal.
UP NEXT
Pittsburgh: Hosts St. Louis on Wednesday.
St. Louis: At Chicago on Monday.
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Penguins pull away in third to beat Devils 4-1
By WILL GRAVES AP Sports Writer
PITTSBURGH (AP) — Jake Guentzel tried to corral the puck, but it wasn’t quite cooperating. So as the Pittsburgh Penguins’ forward raced in on New Jersey goalie Mackenzie Blackwood in the middle of the second period on Friday night, Guentzel kept his stick on the ice and hoped for the best.
“It’s just kind of a cluster there when you lose a puck like that and you’re on a breakaway,” Guentzel said. “Just tried to get him to cheat over and it worked.”
As tends to happen when Guentzel is in close, particularly at home.
Guentzel managed find enough control to deke from his forehand to his backhand and back again, getting Blackwood to bite in the process. Guentzel tapped the puck into the open net for his team-leading 11th goal of the season — and seventh at PPG Paints Arena — to give the Penguins all the momentum they would need in a 4-1 victory.
“We’re playing well,” Guentzel said. “I think our record might not show some games that we’ve played well in but I think our top to bottom lineup, we’re just playing well and we’re filling spots and guys are stepping up big, so I think it’s been good.”
Guentzel has three goals and three assists during a four-game point streak that started shortly after the Penguins lost captain Sidney Crosby for at least six weeks following surgery to repair a sports hernia. Pittsburgh’s top line has kept rolling anyway as Guentzel, Rust and Evgeni Malkin have combined for eight goals and 12 assists in the five games since Crosby went down.
“I think they kind of feed off each other,” Penguins defenseman John Marino said. “They always kind of know where they are. They’re always in the right position.”
And they’re getting help. Marino and Jared McCann scored 25 seconds apart in the third period to chase Blackwood. Dominik Kahun added his sixth goal in 11 games as the Penguins snapped a four-game winless streak at home against New Jersey. Tristan Jarry trimmed his goals-against average to 1.81 by stopping 36 shots, weathering an early second-period surge from the Devils then coasting after Guentzel’s pretty move.
Taylor Hall scored his third of the season for the Devils. Blackwood made 30 saves before being removed in favor of Louis Domingue early in the third period after giving up goals on back to back shots.
“That one is not on Mackenzie,” New Jersey coach John Hynes said. “I mean, he kept us in the game in the first period. The pull was not regarding Mackenzie or the disappointment in him by any means.”
If the Penguins were drained following consecutive overtime losses to the streaking New York Islanders, it didn’t show. Pittsburgh carried play early and Kahun gave the Penguins the lead 7:51 into the first when linemate Dominik Simon created a turnover along the boards in the New Jersey zone and slipped the puck to Kahun. Kahun worked his way past Devils defenseman Mirco Mueller and flipped the puck past Blackwood’s stick to put Pittsburgh in front.
Hall evened it 31 seconds into the second with a power-play goal, the third Pittsburgh surrendered in two games following a franchise record-tying stretch in which the Penguins went 10 games without giving up a goal while a man down. New Jersey kept pressing, ripping off 12 shots at Jarry in the opening eight minutes of the second. Jarry, however, stood his ground.
The Penguins have been only so-so finishing off opponents this season, coming in 6-2-1 when leading after two periods, including a late collapse against the Islanders on Tuesday that ended with New York extending its point streak to 15 games. There would be no letdown this time against a New Jersey attack that’s struggling to score goals.
Pittsburgh’s Alex Galchenyuk forced a turnover on the forecheck early in the third and the puck came to McCann in the slot. McCann beat Blackwood high to make it 3-1. The buzz in the arena hadn’t died down when Marino pushed the lead to three goals on a slapshot from above the right circle that made its way through a sea of bodies and into the net to chase Blackwood.
“We have some surges, but there’s still some inconsistencies to our game,” Devils center Travis Zajac said. “Just need more out of guys like me, out of other guys, if we want to turn this thing around.”
NOTES: The Devils, ranked 29th in the league in scoring, have scored two or fewer goals in 12 of 21 games. … New Jersey scratched D Matt Tennyson and C John Hayden. … The Penguins D Juuso Riikola and C Joseph Blandisi in addition to Schultz. … Pittsburgh improved to 3-2 on the second night of back-to-backs. … Pittsburgh F Patric Hornqvist skated 13:16 in his second game back after missing nearly three weeks with a lower-body injury. Hornqvist was also dropped during a second-period fight with New Jersey’s Damon Severson.
UP NEXT
Devils: Welcome Detroit on Saturday night. New Jersey has dropped four straight to the Red Wings.
Penguins: Host Calgary on Monday. The teams split their two meetings last season.
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Nelson’s OT goal lifts streaking Islanders over Penguins 5-4
By WILL GRAVES AP Sports Writer
PITTSBURGH (AP) — New York Islanders coach Barry Trotz insists his team isn’t keeping track of its torrid start, even as the weeks pass and the victories pile up.
Probably time to start.
Brock Nelson’s second goal of the game 2:55 into overtime capped another frantic comeback to lift the Islanders to a 5-4 victory over the Pittsburgh Penguins on Tuesday night to extend their points streak to 15 games, tied for the longest in franchise history.
“Our team would have no clue if we won 10 in a row or five in a row,” Trotz said. “We would just know we haven’t lost in a while. That’s really been our mentality.”
One that seems to suit New York just fine. Ahead. Behind. It doesn’t matter. The Islanders are playing with a tenacity that’s kept them unbeaten in regulation since Oct. 11. The only blemish over the last five-plus weeks came on Nov. 7 against Pittsburgh, when the Penguins scrambled back from three goals down to stun New York in overtime.
The Islanders returned the favor when goals by Josh Bailey and Ryan Pulock in the final 4:29 of regulation forced overtime. Nelson won it when he fired a shot at Matt Murray that trickled to the goaltender’s right. Nelson tapped the rebound into the open net for his sixth goal of the season.
“It’s fun when you’re winning games,” Nelson said. “So right now, we’re showing up, working hard and believing in each other. Off that, you can build confidence in a game.”
Anthony Beauvillier added his seventh for the Islanders, and Semyon Varlamov stopped 27 shots as New York equaled a points streak achieved three other times, the last by the 1981-82 club that put together a 15-0-0 stretch on its way to a third straight Stanley Cup. The Islanders will look to make history when they host the Penguins on Thursday on the back end of a home-and-home.
It’s an attempt that looked in serious jeopardy trailing by two goals with less than five minutes to play. Yet just as they did on Saturday night in Philadelphia — when they erased a three-goal third period deficit to survive in a shootout — the Islanders simply would not go away.
Bailey’s goal got New York back within one. Pulock tied it when he drilled a slap shot from just inside the blue line with 1:32 remaining after the Islanders pulled Varlamov for an extra skater. Nelson’s tap helped New York become the first team ever to win consecutive games in which they trailed by multiple goals with less than seven minutes left in regulation.
“Lots of character, lots of leadership in this room,” Beauvillier said. “We don’t want to keep going down every game. Obviously, we want to play with the lead, but one of those games where those points are going to count at the end of the year.”
Brandon Tanev scored twice for Pittsburgh. Jake Guentzel had a goal and an assist and Bryan Rust also scored for the Penguins. Murray finished with 37 saves but Pittsburgh lost for the third time in nine tries this season when leading after two periods.
“It’s same game like we played in Brooklyn,” said Penguins center Evgeni Malkin, who had two assists. “They lead 3-0 and we won in OT. It’s same game exactly. We have to understand we can’t do mistakes like the last 10 minutes, and 6 on 5. It’s hard to say, but we played a good game I think except the last 10 minutes.”
The Penguins created traffic around Varlamov all night, and Guentzel made it 4-2 early in the third period when he sprinted down the middle of the New York zone, collected a lead pass from Alex Galchenyuk and flicked the puck by Varlamov’s right pad. New York’s first regulation loss since the second week of the season seemed imminent.
It wasn’t.
Rust took a tripping penalty with 6:23 to go and Bailey took advantage of Pittsburgh’s exhausted penalty killers, beating Murray just after the penalty expired to give the Islanders a jolt that carried them the rest of the way.
“It’s a tough time of a game to take a penalty,” Penguins coach Mike Sullivan said. “The third goal was the killer.”
NOTES: Nelson left briefly in the first period to be evaluated after taking a slap shot off the helmet. The puck hit Nelson’s helmet with such force a portion of it shattered. … Penguins C Nick Bjugstad missed his second straight game due to a lower-body injury that coach Mike Sullivan said will keep him out “longer-term.” … Pittsburgh handed out bobbleheads as tribute to general manager Jim Rutherford, who was inducted into Hockey Hall of Fame on Monday. … The Islanders scratched D Noah Dobson and F Ross Johnston. … Pittsburgh scratched D Chad Ruhwedel and D Kris Letang, who hasn’t played since Nov. 4 with a lower-body injury. … The Islanders went 0 for 3 on the power play. The Penguins have killed 23 straight penalties. … Pittsburgh went 2 for 4 with the man advantage.
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