The best way to defeat the Pittsburgh Penguins is to stay out of the penalty box. The Penguins’ power play has churned out goals at a high rate in recent games.
They’ll look to collect a road victory in Detroit on Tuesday during the Red Wings’ annual New Year’s Eve game.
Pittsburgh has notched six power-play goals over its last three games. On Sunday, the Penguins converted both opportunities in a 3-2 victory over the New York Islanders. That avenged a 6-3 loss to the Islanders the previous day.
Pittsburgh has two productive power-play units, one headed by Sidney Crosby and the other featuring Evgeni Malkin.
“On any given night, one of them could be better than the other one, because we’ve got some talented people on both,” coach Mike Sullivan said.
After a slow start, Michael Bunting has scored at least one goal in the last three games. He contributed a goal and an assist in Sunday’s victory. Over the last 13 games, Bunting has seven goals and seven assists.
“Everyone is playing well, and I find that when the team is having success, individuals are having success as well,” Bunting said. “And it’s going around this whole room and you can see that. We want to keep this going.”
Crosby made franchise history by setting up Bunting’s goal. It was Crosby’s 1,034th career assist, passing Mario Lemieux to become the Penguins’ all-time assists leader and No. 12 in NHL history.
“He makes so many plays on his backhand, he’s just so creative,” Sullivan said. “The accomplishment, the milestone that he’s reached — this is just more evidence of an amazing career. He’s just an elite player.”
The Penguins have gone 10-4-1 since Nov. 27 and will look to cap off December by winning the three-game season series against Detroit. Pittsburgh won the first matchup 6-3 on Oct. 10. The Red Wings pulled out a 3-2 overtime victory on Nov. 13.
Detroit snapped a four-game losing streak and handed Todd McLellan his first victory as head coach by defeating Washington 4-2 on Sunday. McLellan was behind the bench for the second time since replacing Derek Lalonde.
Patrick Kane became the second U.S.-born player to reach 1,300 career points, trailing only Mike Modano’s 1,374. Kane, who had a power-play goal and an assist against the Capitals, is also the fourth active player to reach that milestone, joining Crosby (1,636), Malkin (1,327) and Washington’s Alex Ovechkin (1,577).
“Patty Kane got 1,300 points (Sunday), and that gave us energy,” McLellan said. “Those special moments, or events, energize other guys and they get excited.”
Alex DeBrincat scored twice as the Red Wings opened up a 4-1 lead in the first period and held on. They’ll try to build off that performance in their final game of 2024.
“We had good jump right off the bat. But we have to continue to do that and be ready to play each night and we’ll be good,” DeBrincat said. “A lot of it is reset. New coach comes in and gets that energy in the room and forget about what has happened in the past.
“There’s a new start, so it’s good to get that win and, hopefully, we can get some more here soon.”
–Field Level Media
