Erik Karlsson scored twice, and goaltender Tristan Jarry stopped all 35 shots he faced Saturday in the Pittsburgh Penguins’ fourth straight win, 4-0 over the visiting Buffalo Sabres.
It was Jarry’s league-leading third shutout of the season and the 16th of his career.
Evgeni Malkin added a goal and an assist, Drew O’Connor scored and Ryan Graves added two assists for the Penguins, who were coming off a three-game sweep on a California road trip.
Jarry left Tuesday’s game at Anaheim after taking a hit to the head and a puck to the face, but tests showed no concussion or other head injury, and he was able to start Saturday after missing Thursday’s game at Los Angeles because his right eye was swollen shut.
The Sabres, playing on the second of back-to-back nights and with 11 forwards and seven defensemen, had been 4-1-1 in their previous six games.
Buffalo goaltender Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen made 36 saves.
The Penguins held a 15-14 lead in shots after the first, and they scored on the 15th.
Malkin gave Pittsburgh a 1-0 lead with 58.3 seconds left in the first on a strong individual effort. From near the right corner, he got the puck off the end boards and, from a severe angle, ripped a backhander toward the net. The puck went in off Luukkonen’s helmet.
That gave Malkin the team lead with eight goals.
At 16:24 of the second, O’Connor pushed that lead to 2-0. Coming down the right side, he let loose a shot from the top of the circle that sailed past Luukkonen’s stick.
Pittsburgh led in shots 29-25 after two but had by far more high-caliber chances.
On a power play that carried over from late in the second, the Penguins made it 3-0. Karlsson ripped a shot from the center point that seemed to be earmarked for a tip-in try by Sidney Crosby, but instead the puck glanced off the stick of a Sabres player and over Luukkonen’s blocker 27 seconds into the third.
Karlsson added an empty-netter with 49 seconds left.
–Field Level Media
