CHICAGO (AP) — Sidney Crosby scored twice, Reilly Smith and Bryan Rust added goals, and the Pittsburgh Penguins beat the Chicago Blackhawks 4-1 on Thursday night to snap a three-game losing streak.
With the victory, Pittsburgh moved past Washington and into sixth place in the Metropolitan Division. The Blackhawks, last in the NHL, dropped their eighth straight game (0-7-1).
Blackhawks star rookie Connor Bedard had an assist in his return after a 14-game absence because of a broken jaw. After a sluggish first period, he set up Phillipp Kurashev with a nifty pass through traffic midway through the second. Kurashev dumped it past sprawling goaltender Alex Nedeljkovic.
That drew the largest roar of the night from the United Center crowd of 19,423 for this year's top draft pick.
Bedard lost the game's opening face-off to Crosby, then lost contact with the veteran center, who deflected Marcus Pettersson's fluttering pass over the left shoulder of Blackhawks goaltender Arvid Soderblom 15 seconds in.
Smith made it 2-1 at 12:40 of the first, beating Soderblom with a wrist shot on the glove side after scooting past Bedard.
Crosby was left alone on the goal line to the right of the net for his second goal 5:51 into the third period. Chicago defensemen Seth Jones and Alex Vlasic never got close to him. It's the 12th time Crosby has scored at least 30 goals in a season.
Rust scored from 190 feet into an empty net with 50 seconds remaining.
Nedeljkovic made 27 saves. Soderblom had 23.
Bedard's assist moved him a point ahead of Minnesota's Brock Faber in the rookie scoring race, 34-33.
Bedard’s return wasn’t expected until next week at the earliest.
He had practiced with the team in recent days but hadn’t been in any contact drills until Thursday morning, when he skated with the team’s spare players, a day after doctors cleared him.
“We had to put him though the next step this morning, a little bit of battle,” Coach Luke Richardson said. “As always, he was ready to come back, but we wanted to talk to him about protecting himself a little bit out there.
We put him through some paces and he said, ‘Yeah, I’m comfortable.’ He looked like himself.”
In addition to Bedard, the Blackhawks brought defenseman Jarred Tinordi off injured reserve.
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