The Pittsburgh Penguins eased by the Florida Panthers 5-1 at PPG Paints Arena on Tuesday night. Florida reached the midway point of the regular season with 41 points.
It was the beginning of a five-game road trip for the Panthers. The Penguins won for the ninth time in their last 10 games.
Pittsburgh(24-13-6) got the initial goal at 1:29 of the first period. Tanner Pearson went into the right circle and put in a snap shot past Roberto Luongo.
The Pens made it 2-0 at the 3:03 mark. Jake Guentzel stroked a pass to his right from the left circle and Bryan Rust went to his backhand in the crease area for the score. Sidney Crosby got his 33rd assist of the season on the play.
In the second period, Pittsburgh collected two shorthanded goals for a four-goal margin. Rust had one at 3:04 and Riley Sheahan got his tally unassisted at 8:58. The Panthers pulled Luongo for James Reimer after he allowed the fourth goal of the contest.
Florida(17-17-7) had a power-play goal taken away with 10:53 left in the second. The goal was overruled because Frank Vatrano was offside when the Cats entered the Pittsburgh zone.
The Panthers broke the shutout with 44 seconds to go in the second. Aaron Ekblad set a Florida franchise record for most career goals by defenseman with his 62nd NHL goal passing Robert Svehla. Evgenii Dadonov was credited with an assist on the feed.
The Penguins extended their lead to 5-1 with 6:19 remaining in the third period. Crosby got his 20th goal of the season on assists from Evgeni Malkin and Marcus Pettersson. It was the 12th time that Crosby has scored at least 20 points in a season.
No comments:
Post a Comment