After having a perfect four-game road trip last week, the Pittsburgh Penguins came back home and picked up right where they left off with a 6-2 victory over the Chicago Blackhawks on Thursday night that extended their win streak to five games. They are 6-0-2 in their last eight, and on a 12-2-2 run since coming back from the holiday break.
“Everyone is working hard,” Arturs Silovs said. “It’s hard to win in this league. Everyone understands that. Guys have been clicking really well (with) each other. It’s great to see that.”
The Penguins put together a complete team effort with goals from Connor Dewar, Ben Kindel, Egor Chinakhov, Anthony Mantha and Ryan Shea.
With Bryan Rust serving the first game of his three-game suspension, Rutger McGroarty was recalled from Wilkes-Barre/Scranton and slotted into the lineup. Although the rookie didn’t officially factor in on the scoresheet, he had a team-high five shots on goal, three hits, and a +3 on the night.
“I thought he was impactful,” Head Coach Dan Muse said. “He was shooting the puck, driving the net, and was involved. When the opportunity came about, he hit the ground running, and it’s a credit to him.”
The Penguins did get off to a slow start, as they didn't register a shot in the first half of the first period. Connor Murphy then got the Blackhawks on the board first to open the scoring. Just two minutes later, Pittsburgh's hardworking fourth line generated a goal off the stick of Dewar, his first of the night.
“He’s a guy who doesn’t take any nights off,” Muse said. “He’s a great example of playing the right way all of the time. I don’t think he knows anything different. He creates some greasy offense, but when the time and space is there, he can also make skill plays.”
But overall, the Penguins were shorthanded three times, and Silovs and the penalty killers had to battle. So, although the game was tied going into the first intermission, the message in the locker room was simple: the team knew they had to be better.
“Easy – I think it's experience,” Mantha said on what allows them to self-correct quickly. “Those leaders, they have 1,000-plus games. You just listen to them, and you know we needed to step it up, and that's kind of an easy message to get through.”
In the middle frame, floodgates broke open for the Penguins, who outshot the Blackhawks 25-6 in that period.
To start it off, Kindel and McGroarty worked hard in the offensive zone and generated momentum. The puck found Mantha, who made a slick pass to Kindel at the left circle, who beat Arvid Soderblom glove side.
“We're dogs on the forecheck, so once you can hunt down there D and get on them, we did a really good job on that shift,” McGroarty said of him and Kindel. “And then [Mantha] made an incredible play over to [Kindel] and then [Kindel] with the bomb five-hole. So, it was a good shift.”
As the period went on, the Penguins continued to apply pressure on the Blackhawks.
Parker Wotherspoon laid a huge hit in the neutral zone on Tyler Bertuzzi, which sprung Evgeni Malkin on the rush. Malkin sent a no-look backhand pass to his fellow countryman in Chinakhov, who danced around Artem Levshunov and got in alone to beat Soderblom. Chinakhov now has eight points (6G-2A) in 14 games since being acquired from Columbus.
Thirty seconds later, the Penguins struck again. This time, it was Kindel setting up Mantha for a breakaway, who scored five-hole on Soderblom.
“[Kindel] has his head up the whole way,” Mantha said. “I was excited for him to pass it, because I was going offside real quick. It's kind of a play where you see it's kind of building up, and we've been in those situations as players many times.”
With just thirty seconds left in the period, Ilya Solovyov, acquired in a trade from Colorado on Jan. 20, played his first game as a Penguin and set up Ryan Shea for a one-timer goal.
“First, I thought that maybe I would unload it, because I saw the scramble in the netfront,” Solovyov said. “But then, I got a quick look and saw that [Shea] was wide open like he was ready to hammer it. I just tried to give it as nicely as I can.”
All in all, it was four unanswered goals and three in the final five-and-a-half minutes of the second.
"We started stacking a lot of shifts," McGroarty said. "We're a really scary team when we can start stacking shifts and getting changes in the O-zone and hemming them in."
In the third period, the Penguins continued to control momentum and limit the Blackhawks. Dewar got his second goal of the game to set a new career high with 12, and the team improved to 10-0-1 this season when he scores.
Ten different players recorded a point tonight, and Kindel, Dewar, Mantha, Shea, Lizotte, and Acciari all had multi-point outings.
“I mean, that's a massive part of why we're winning,” Mantha said on spreading out the offense. “You know, we talked about the defense side of things, but I think everyone in the O-zone is kind of creating chances and getting the puck behind their goalie.”
In unison with the team’s standout offense, another key to their success has been their defensive play.
“We're blocking enough shots. We're playing compact in our zone,” Mantha said. “Then the goalies, when they have to make the saves, they're making the saves. Our penalty kill has been really good.”
“We're controlling the puck for most of the night. So that helps, obviously. If you get into the neutral zone or O-zone, you’re not defending. All that together, that’s how we’re managing to do that.”
