Musings: Penguins Get Fourth Straight Win

The Penguins won their fourth game in a row on Saturday in Detroit, sweeping both games of their home-and-home series with the Red Wings. They took this contest by a 4-1 score, dominating from start to finish against the Atlantic Division leaders as they continue to stay hot coming out of the holiday break.

“We’ve been scoring a lot of goals, playing amazing defensively,” goaltender Stuart Skinner said. “Our PK has been fantastic. Power play’s been working and doing really well. I feel like the team's got a really solid amount of chemistry right now, and everyone's going, you know? We're using everybody, every guy's going, playing their game and playing their role. From my perspective, it's really fun to watch.”

Bryan Rust opened the scoring, Yegor Chinakhov got his first as a Penguin, and Rickard Rakell and Connor Dewar both scored empty-netters. Skinner faced just 12 shots between the pipes.

“We didn't give them anything all night,” Skinner said. “It made my night really easy. All the credit to the guys in front of me.”

It took Rust just under four minutes to get Pittsburgh on the board after a feed from Sidney Crosby found its way to his backhand. Rust went to his forehand and sniped a shot past Red Wings John Gibson for his 16^th of the season.

Towards the end of the frame, Ben Kindel made a beautiful pass to his new linemate Chinakhov, springing the winger on a breakaway. He beat Gibson five-hole to give Pittsburgh a 2-1 lead.

“He's played really well,” Rakell said. “I think it's always tough to come to a new team with a new system, but I think he's really trying everything he's got out there. He's got a great shot and uses it as much as he can. So, happy for him, and hopefully he'll keep going tomorrow.”

Overall, it was an excellent period for Pittsburgh, who kept Detroit to just five shots. The Red Wings didn’t even record one until over midway through. The Penguins carried that strong play into the second period, though Detroit did find an opportunistic goal off a lucky bounce to make it a one-goal game.

But the Penguins kept with it in the final frame, playing exactly the right way and eventually getting rewarded with tallies from Rakell and Dewar as the clock ticked down.

The Penguins get right back at it on Sunday afternoon in Columbus, with Chinakhov facing his former team just days after the trade went down. “It’s (going to be) pretty emotional,” he said. “But first of all, we need to win the game. That’s it.”

Here’s what Head Coach Dan Muse had to say after the game.

You gave up 12 shots all game. That’s a far cry from the team that we saw defending leads a month ago. What has changed? Because they look like a completely different hockey team, especially today, defensively.

Yeah, 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 during the course of the year. Credit to the guys. They worked on them, and they applied things. I think the way we played the third period as a whole was much better, you know? And it wasn't sitting back. I thought we played hard at both ends. Came to the late game situation, I thought guys did an excellent job there in terms of just the overall execution.

What about the strong start? What led to it?

Yeah, I liked the game. I think we were able to kind of stack some shifts there in the first period. When things maybe weren't going our way, we didn't let it linger. We didn't let it lead to multiple shifts there on the wrong side of things. I thought guys were getting in lanes, blocking shots, trying to keep shots to the outside when they did have possession, making sure Stu could see things. I thought it was a good game, it was a fast game. It seems like it was a really fast game. We're happy with that. I think it's another step. We talked about that coming out of the break, just kind of a reset. Just from each day, trying to work to continue to build our game. And credit to the guys here in terms of going out there and doing that.

Is it just a simple matter of chemistry and gelling to get to this point, or are there a few things that are different right now?

Again, I think if you go back, like, you go back to last month where there it was a tougher stretch, but in plenty of those games, for a good portion of them, we liked the way we play. Maybe we didn't like how we finished them. A lot of them, we didn't like how we finished them. But the guys were playing the right way, we were doing the right things, and we just needed to do it for 60 minutes. And I thought that's what we had here tonight.

I know you talked about this a little bit with Chinakhov when you guys got him, but to see that shot live, just what did you think?

[Smiles] It’s as advertised. It is. It's just really heavy. 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.

What do you think that goal can do for his confidence as he gets acclimated here?

Yeah, I think it helps. You don't want it to get to the point where you get some chances, and now you're starting to think about it. I mean, I think he's done a good job just going out there and playing. I said the first game for him was just a lot of special teams, a lot of penalty kills. So, it was tougher to get into the game for him. I thought it was a little bit easier tonight. I think in both games, though, you see the shot, the obvious. But I think his work away from the puck has been really good, the defensive responsibility, some of the details in his game. Even line changes, coming off at the right time. There's been a lot of good things there.