Bryan Rust had a goal and Sidney Crosby had two assists to lead the visiting Pittsburgh Penguins to a 4-1 victory over the Detroit Red Wings on Saturday afternoon.
Yegor Chinakhov, Rickard Rakell and Connor Dewar also scored goals, and Parker Wotherspoon had two assists for Pittsburgh, which completed a sweep of a home-and-home with the Eastern Conference leaders. The Penguins, who defeated the Red Wings 4-3 in overtime on Thursday in Pittsburgh, held Detroit to just 12 shots on goal, a season-low for an opponent.
Stuart Skinner made 11 saves for the Penguins, who extended their win streak to four games.
Alex DeBrincat scored for Detroit, which didn’t have a shot on goal in the first 13 minutes of the game and had just six shots on goal in the first 35 minutes. John Gibson finished with 27 saves.
Pittsburgh took a 1-0 lead at the 3:44 mark of the first period on Rust’s fourth goal in the last five games. Wotherspoon started the scoring play with a takeaway in the neutral zone and passed ahead to Crosby who then hit Rust with a crossing pass in the left circle where Rust ripped a wrist shot into the top far corner.
The Penguins extended the lead to 2-0 near the end of the period when Chinakhov, obtained in a trade with the Columbus Blue Jackets on Monday, took a long stretch pass from Ben Kindel during a Detroit line change and broke in and beat Gibson five-hole.
DeBrincat cut it to 2-1 at the 15:05 mark of the second period with his team-leading 22nd goal, roofing a wrist shot over Skinner’s left shoulder at the end of a 2-on-1 rush. It was just the second shot of the period for the Red Wings.
Detroit pulled Gibson with 2:25 to go and Rakell sealed the win with an empty-netter off a Crosby feed with 59.3 seconds to go. Dewar finished the scoring with another empty-netter with 31.2 seconds left as the Red Wings failed to garner a shot on goal with the extra attacker.
–Field Level Media
