Ryan Shea and Bryan Rust each registered a goal and an assist, and the Pittsburgh Penguins pulled away for a 4-1 win over the Minnesota Wild on Thursday night in St. Paul, Minn.
Ben Kindel and Anthony Mantha also scored for Pittsburgh, which earned at least one point for the eighth game in a row. The Penguins improved to 6-0-2 during that span.
Kirill Kaprizov scored Minnesota’s lone goal. The Wild remained winless for the fifth game in a row, and they dropped to 1-5-3 in their past nine contests.
Penguins goaltender Tristan Jarry stopped 26 of 27 shots to earn the victory.
Wild goaltender Filip Gustavsson allowed three goals on 33 shots.
Minnesota opened the scoring midway through the first period. Marcus Johansson carried the puck into the offensive zone and snapped a pass to Kaprizov, who punched in a shot from the left side of the crease for his team-leading seventh goal.
The Penguins pulled even at 1-1 with 17:42 remaining in the second period. Shea spotted a loose puck and fired a slap shot from the left circle for the goal.
Shea assisted on the Penguins’ go-ahead goal a little more than four minutes later. He flipped a long pass to Rust, who scored from the right side of the crease to make it 2-1.
Pittsburgh added a power-play goal to increase its lead to 3-1 with 12:30 to go in the third period. Kindel tracked a bouncing puck in front of the crease and slapped in a goal.
The Wild pulled their goaltender for an extra skater in the final minutes, but the plan backfired. Mantha scored an empty-net goal to put the Penguins on top 4-1 with 2:42 remaining.
Minnesota finished 0-for-4 on the power play. The Penguins were 1-for-1 on the man advantage.
Pittsburgh center Sidney Crosby finished with a plus-1 rating but did not register a point. He won 10 faceoff attempts, which was the most by any player on either team.
–Field Level Media
