Nicklas Backstrom made it 2-0 by beating Penguins center Evgeni Malkin to a pass from Jakub Vrana before scoring on a wrist shot near the left post at 16:15 of the first.
Richard Panik extended the lead to 3-0 with a wrist shot near the right post at 18:38 of the first.
Jared McCann was given a penalty shot after being hooked by Jonas Siegenthaler on a breakaway with 1:12 remaining in the second period. Holtby made a save with his right pad on a wrist shot by McCann, who has not scored in 20 straight games.
Dowd scored 34 seconds into the third period, making it 4-0 on a wrist shot at the end of a shorthanded 2-on-1. He had two assists in his previous 24 games.
"As a team and as players, you want to respond," Dowd said. "The NHL is built to where you play games every other day. You have the ability to respond if you don't like the way your game's going. It's not like I'm looking to go out there and score goals. Yeah, it's great, but at the same time, just be responsible and play good defense.
"That leads to offense like it did tonight. We're not going to show up on the stat sheet every night as a fourth line, but we're going to do the little things."
Crosby tapped in a pass from Conor Sheary outside the crease, making it 4-1 at 5:09 of the third. Malkin made it 4-2 on the power play at 12:16.
"I think our compete was there," Crosby said. "We made some bad reads. A team like that, that's pretty opportunistic, they're not going to make mistakes."
