Ryan Shea and Bryan Rust each had a goal and an assist, and the Pittsburgh Penguins won 4-1 against the Minnesota Wild on Thursday night in St. Paul, Minnesota.
Ben Kindel and Anthony Mantha also scored for Pittsburgh, which had at least a point for the eighth straight game. The Penguins improved to 6-0-2 in that span.
Kirill Kaprizov scored Minnesota’s only goal. The Wild went winless for the fifth straight game and fell to 1-5-3 in their last nine games.
Penguins goaltender Tristan Jarry stopped 26 of 27 shots to earn the victory.
Wild goalie Filip Gustavsson allowed three goals on 33 shots.
Minnesota opened the scoring midway through the first half. Marcus Johansson carried the puck into the offensive zone and fired a pass to Kaprizov, who fired a shot from the left side of the crease for his team-best seventh goal.
The Penguins tied it at 1-1 with 17:42 left in the second period. Shea spotted a loose puck and fired a slap shot from the left circle for the goal.
Shea contributed to the Penguins’ goal just over four minutes later. He threw 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 left in the third period. Kindel followed a bouncing puck in front of the crease and scored 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 up 4-1 with 2:42 left.
Minnesota finished 0 of 4 on the power play. The Penguins were 1-for-1 on the power play.
Pittsburgh center Sidney Crosby finished with a plus-1 rating, but did not record a point. He won 10 faceoff attempts, which was the most of any player on either team.
–Field level media
