93.7 The Fan (PITTSBURGH) - The Pens pick up their 4th straight win and reclaim a wild card spot after a 4-1 win over the Red Wings.
Pittsburgh had a tough stretch in December when they lost 8 games in a row. Despite that, they are now winners of four straight games and are slotted in the second wild card spot with 47 points. On Saturday against Detroit, they allowed just 12 shots on net.
"I think over the course of the year that's what you want to see. You want to keep getting better. Things are going to come up over the course of the year. Credit to the guys, they worked on them, they applied things," said head coach Dan Muse after the game.
The Pens jumped out to a 2-0 lead in the first period. Sidney Crosby fed a great pass to Bryan Rust for the opening goal. Newcomer Yegor Chinakhov, in just his second game with the Pens, made it 2-0, after Ben Kindel made an incredible pass in front of Stuart Skinner in the Pens zone all the way to the Red Wings zone, just behind the blue line and Chinakhov buried a wrister past John Gibson.
"He gets it off quick. I mean, obviously it's a great goal there. It's a great pass on the goal, great finish. But you see it there, the downhill that he had with the power play, too. Ended up missing, but yeah, that release is unique," said Muse.
Detroit cut the Pens lead to 2-1 in the second period on an Alex DeBrincat goal. Pittsburgh's defense in the third period held the Red Wings to just 3 shots. The Pens got two empty netters in the final minute from Rickard Rakell and Connor Dewar.
"Just the way we played the third period as a whole was much better. It wasn't sitting back, we played the game, we played the game hard at both ends. Came to the late game situation, I thought guys did an excellent job in terms of the overall execution," said Muse.
Skinner gave lots of praise to the Penguins defense.
"It was incredible, I'm not too sure the number of blocked shots but I would imagine it was high. Anytime you get 12 shots in a game against a really good team like that, I mean that's very impressive by the guys that played in front of me," said Skinner after the win. "It tells you how well we played defensively. We didn't give them anything all night, it made my night really easy."
The Pens will face Chinakhov's former team, the Columbus Blue Jackets tomorrow at 3:00.