The Penguins got out to an early lead, held on for dear life and gave themselves enough of a cushion to take a 6-3 win over the Philadelphia Flyers on Thursday night.
Pittsburgh snapped a three-game losing streak and broke out of a slump where they only produced two total goals in those three games. It only took one period against the Flyers to match that output, courtesy of early goals from Justin Brazeau and Bryan Rust, both coming off the power play.
Brazeau’s goal came off a pretty passing sequence from Anthony Mantha and then Ben Kindel breaking down the Philadelphia PK with cross-ice moves, leaving Brazeau at the goal mouth for the easy finish for his 13th goal of the season.
Rust netted his 17th of the season from the left side and beating goalie Samuel Ersson from distance.
Pittsburgh added to their lead when Egor Chinakhov took a pass from Evgeni Malkin and sniped a short-side shot on Ersson 1:16 into the period.
The Flyers then put on a push and answered with their first goal of the night from Rodrigo Abols scoring 1:01 later. For some reason at this point Philadelphia coach Rick Tocchet decided the time was right to end Ersson’s night and put backup Aleksei Kolosov in the game.
The Flyers increased the pressure throughout the second period only to be answered by a strong performance from Stuart Skinner to make 16 saves and not allow the game to tighten any further. The Penguins got a huge goal late in the period from their fourth line, with Blake Lizotte tapping in a puck out of mid-air from a Noel Acciari effort that gave some major breathing room to increase the score to 4-1.
The game was further salted away early in the third period by Sidney Crosby doing ultimate Sidney Crosby things of scoring on the power play against the Flyers.
Pittsburgh’s depth shone through later when Tommy Novak picked off a puck and setup Connor Dewar to increase the lead to 6-1.
Philadelphia would net two goals in the second half of the third period to bring the final score to 6-3.
