Matt Murray picked up right where he left off in the Stanley Cup Playoffs, anchoring his fellow Pittsburgh Penguins for his third consecutive postseason shutout in last night’s 7-0 Game 1 victory over the Philadelphia Flyers. With more details from last night, we hear from Bruce Frey of Beaver County Radio Sports:
Murray’s streak now has reached 206:32, and he will get the start for Game 2 in Pittsburgh.
Crosby’s hat trick pushes Penguins past Flyers 7-0
By WILL GRAVES, AP Sports Writer
PITTSBURGH (AP) — Sidney Crosby and the Pittsburgh Penguins sent a message in their playoff opener.
The Penguins captain got his third career postseason hat trick, Evgeni Malkin added a highlight-reel goal and the two-time defending Stanley Cup champions rolled over the Philadelphia Flyers 7-0 on Wednesday night to take quick control of their first-round series.
Crosby batted a shot out of midair and past Philadelphia goalie Brian Elliott in the second period for his first goal, tapped in one from the doorstep against Petr Mrazek 7:41 into the third and then deflected in another just over three minutes later as the Penguins dominated their cross-state rivals from the opening faceoff of Game 1.
Jake Guentzel had a goal and three assists for Pittsburgh. Bryan Rust and Carl Hagelin also scored. Matt Murray stopped 24 shots for his third straight playoff shutout.
Game 2 is Friday night in Pittsburgh.
Elliott stopped 14 of 19 shots and was pulled in favor of Mrazek after Crosby’s latest bit of wizardry pushed Pittsburgh’s lead to 5-0 just 9:01 into the second. Mrazek wasn’t much better, getting beaten by Crosby twice more as Philadelphia’s return to the playoffs after a one-year absence started with a thud.
The Flyers stressed the need to stay out of the penalty box and put together three disciplined, competitive periods if they wanted to put an abrupt halt to Pittsburgh’s run at history. It’s something Philadelphia failed to do during the regular season when the Penguins beat them in all four meetings, scoring five goals each time.
Game 1 didn’t go any better.
Elliott stopped Kris Letang’s slap shot with his blocker only to see the long rebound go right to Rust, who ripped it over Elliott’s right shoulder to give the Penguins the lead 2:38 into the game.
Philadelphia’s best chance at staying in it came minutes later, but Scott Laughton whiffed on his first attempt from the doorstep and Murray made a sprawling glove save on Laughton’s second try to preserve Pittsburgh’s lead.
Moments later, Hagelin expertly redirected Patric Hornqvist’s shot past Elliott 10:07 into the game. Malkin drew a hooking penalty to negate a Pittsburgh power play, and when he emerged from the penalty box, he whizzed past three Flyers in one sequence, darting by Jakub Voracek, slipping past Claude Giroux and then fending off Shayne Gostisbehere before flicking a backhand past Elliott to put the Penguins up 3-0 before the series was 15 minutes old.
All that before Crosby got involved.
The two-time MVP has a knack for scoring in unorthodox ways. He beat Montreal’s Carey Price with an intentional double-deflection and smacked a rebound out of air in overtime to top New Jersey within a span of eight days last month.
His first of the playoffs was just as impressive. Brian Dumoulin’s shot from the point fluttered after hitting a stick. Enter Crosby, who reached out and swatted it like a tennis player sending a two-handed backhand down the line. It zipped past a stunned Elliott. His last two goals weren’t quite as dramatic, though they did pull him into a tie with team owner and Hall of Famer Mario Lemieux for the franchise record for the most career hat tricks in the playoffs.
NOTES: Murray hasn’t allowed a goal since Game 4 of the 2017 Stanley Cup finals, a span of 206:26. … The Penguins, who had the league’s top-ranked power play during the regular season, went 1 for 4 with the man advantage. The Flyers were 0 for 4. … Pittsburgh C Derick Brassard, who missed time late in the regular season with a lower-body injury, had an assist in 13:44.
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Penguins top Senators 4-0 to earn home-ice in 1st round
By WILL GRAVES, AP Sports Writer
PITTSBURGH (AP) — The Pittsburgh Penguins will start their bid for a Stanley Cup three-peat home.
Sidney Crosby and Jake Guentzel banked in goals off Craig Anderson minutes apart in the second period, Casey DeSmith stopped 34 shots and the Penguins beat the Ottawa Senators 4-0 to clinch second place in the Metropolitan Division and home-ice advantage in the opening round of the playoffs.
Phil Kessel collected his 34th goal of the season and Patric Hornqvist pushed his career-high to 29 when he beat Anderson late in the third period for the Penguins, who will host Columbus, New Jersey or Philadelphia next week.
Anderson finished with 19 saves but was beaten twice from behind the goal line in the second period as the Senators lost for the ninth time in 11 games.
Crosby was standing just off the right post when fired a shot that smacked off Anderson’s left pad and into the net 1:25 into the second period. Guentzel scored from nearly the same spot just over six minutes later, flicking a rebound off the end boards that hit Anderson’s left leg and skittered in for his 22nd of the season.
That was more than enough for DeSmith, given the start a night after top goaltender Matt Murray played in a draining overtime victory over the Blue Jackets. DeSmith was sharp throughout while picking up his first career shutout, and by the time Kessel took a slick feed from Riley Sheahan and fired it into the open net 6:55 into the third the Penguins could turn their attention to the postseason.
Not so for the Senators.
Ottawa and Pittsburgh met in the Eastern Conference finals 10 months ago, with the Penguins winning on an overtime goal in Game 7 before going on to beat Nashville for their second straight Cup. The Senators hoped it would be a springboard to becoming perennial contenders. Instead they will miss the postseason for the third time in five years.
That hasn’t been the case in Pittsburgh for more than a decade.
The Penguins overcame a sluggish first half of the season to extend their playoff streak to 12 straight years, the longest active streak in the league. Now they’ve turned their attention to capturing a third straight Cup, something no franchise has done since the New York Islanders won four consecutive titles from 1980-83, more than two years before the oldest player on the Penguins — 32-year-old defenseman Matt Hunwick — was born.
Pittsburgh heads to the postseason relatively healthy outside of forward Derick Brassard, who is skating but remains out indefinitely with a lower-body injury. The Penguins also go in with the top power-play in the league and the best home-ice advantage in the Eastern Conference after picking up their 30th victory of the season at PPG Paints Arena.
NOTES: Both the Senators and Penguins wore a butterfly decal with the initials “JP” on the back of their helmets to honor an Ottawa-area teen and longtime Senators fan who died this week due to a rare and debilitating skin condition. Jonathan Pitre, 17, was nicknamed “”Butterfly Boy” and developed a close relationship with the team after sharing his battle with epidermolysis bullosa. … Kessel played in all 82 games this season and has played in 692 consecutive games, the third-longest active ironman streak in the league. … Crosby played in every game for the first time in his 13-year career. … The victory was head coach Mike Sullivan’s 200th in the NHL.
UP NEXT
Senators: Finish up the season in Boston on Saturday.
Penguins: The first round of the playoffs next week. Pittsburgh has won at least one playoff series in four of the last five seasons.
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Capitals top Penguins to clinch Metropolitan Division title
By WILL GRAVES, AP Sports Writer
PITTSBURGH (AP) — There was no dogpile in the dressing room. No champagne celebration. Not even a beer. Nothing.
The Washington Capitals have been here before. Many times, actually. It’s not that they don’t appreciate winning Metropolitan Division title after Metropolitan Division title like the one they wrapped up with a 3-1 victory over rival Pittsburgh on Sunday night.
It’s just that they’re tired of division banners being the only ones raised to the rafters.
Still, star Alex Ovechkin knows not all playoff runs are created equal. The group that skated off the ice at PPG Paints Arena after keeping the two-time defending Stanley Cup champions in check for three taut and occasionally chippy periods is not the juggernaut that rolled into postseason in 2016 and 2017 only to be sent home in the second round by Pittsburgh.
“We lost lots of players,” Ovechkin said after playing in his 1,000th career regular season game. “Guys in the locker room, experience guys. But different guys step up and they play different. … We play as a team.”
One that hopes following a familiar script will lead — at last — to an unfamiliar ending.
Philipp Grubauer made 36 saves to continue his push to supplant Braden Holtby as Washington’s top goaltender as the Capitals won for the 10th time in 12 games to assure themselves of home-ice advantage through the first two rounds of the playoffs.
“We had a challenge there from the beginning (of the season) on,” Grubauer said. “We lost a couple experienced guys. We learned from our mistakes and we’re still learning. It’s nice to wrap that up, for sure.”
T.J. Oshie, Dmitry Orlov and Tom Wilson scored for Washington and Grubauer did the rest, including a spectacular glove save on Penguins star Sidney Crosby in the third period that served as an exclamation point on the kind of performance that would fit right in over the next two months.
“Last couple games we played in here weren’t too good, so it’s a momentum builder for us,” Grubauer said. “We have to make sure we play the right way next couple games. It’s going to be huge.”
The Penguins have the top power play in the league but went 0 for 5 with the man advantage. Patric Hornqvist picked up his 27th of the season late in the third period to avoid a shutout. Matt Murray stopped 31 shots but couldn’t quite match Grubauer.
“I thought that’s probably as good as our power play has looked the last month, we just didn’t score,” Pittsburgh coach Mike Sullivan said.
A night after earning a playoff berth for a franchise-record 12th straight year, the Penguins lost at home in regulation for just the second time since Jan. 4 to end a late push for a division crown. Not that it matters much to Pittsburgh. The Penguins have ended each of the last two regular seasons as the division runner-up to Washington. And each time the Penguins have used a second-round playoff series victory over the Capitals as a springboard to the Stanley Cup.
“We never win division,” Pittsburgh center Evgeni Malkin said. “It’s not first time. It’s not surprise. We’re fine.”
Ovechkin called becoming just the 57th player in NHL history to play at least 1,000 games for one team “a milestone” but didn’t exactly get caught up in the moment. The 32-year-old knows his career has been equally defined by his 603 goals and his team’s inability to make a deep playoff run.
Despite seven division titles and nine playoff appearances since he made his debut in 2005, Ovechkin has never played on a team that reached the Eastern Conference finals. Postseason success is the only thing that’s eluded him, but Washington appears to be peaking behind Grubauer.
Washington coach Barry Trotz opted to give Grubauer his first career start against Pittsburgh and Grubauer responded brilliantly. He was at his best in the second period, when the Penguins’ lethal power play had four chances to draw even and came up empty each time, including an extended two-man advantage in which Grubauer received a little help from the crossbar when a shot from Malkin clanged off the crossbar.
The lucky bounce preserved a 1-0 lead. Orlov pumped in his career-high 10th just after a Pittsburgh power-play expired later in the period, firing a shot from the slot that went between the legs of Penguins defenseman Olli Maatta and over Murray’s right arm.
When Tom Wilson redirected Matt Niskanen’s shot from the point by Murray 23 seconds into the third period the Capitals had another division title wrapped up but not bragging rights. That will have to come later.
NOTES: Washington went 0 for 4 on the power play. … Malkin was given a 10-minute misconduct with 1:01 left in regulation after mixing it up with Oshie. … Penguins C Derick Brassard missed his third consecutive game with a lower-body injury. … Pittsburgh is 9-7-2 on the second night of back-to-backs this season.
UP NEXT
Capitals: Visit St. Louis on Monday. Washington beat the Blues 4-3 on Jan. 7.
Penguins: Get three days off before finishing regular season with a back-to-back starting on Thursday in Columbus.
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Penguins 1 vs Capitals 3
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Penguins 0 vs Capitals 2
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Penguins 5 vs Canadiens 2
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Penguins 3 vs Canadiens 2
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