Captain Sidney Crosby is on a six-game point streak and the Pittsburgh Penguins have won five of their last six going into their game against the host Florida Panthers on Sunday.
Crosby had a goal and an assist in the Penguins’ 6-3 home win over the Columbus Blue Jackets on Friday night. He has 10 points (six goals, four assists) in that run and 25 goals and 76 points in 69 games this season, which is the 20th for the 37-year-old. Pittsburgh (29-32-10, 68 points) is seven points out of the last wild-card playoff spot with 11 games left in the regular season.
“I still think there’s areas to grow,” Penguins coach Mike Sullivan said. “There are areas where we’ve got to get better, in particular, on the defensive side of the puck. I think that just boils down to details and commitment. I know we’re capable of that.”
Rickard Rakell and Bryan Rust also had a goal and an assist for Pittsburgh on Friday and Alex Nedeljkovic made 44 saves.
“There’s just always something to play for,” said Nedeljkovic, who made his first start since March 7. “If not for yourself, for somebody else. It’s part of being a good teammate. You play for each other and you’re happy when the guy next to you has success because you know when you have your time, he’ll be cheering for you as well. So, it’s just part of being a good teammate, and we have a lot of those in this room.”
Despite battling the Toronto Maple Leafs for first place in the Atlantic Division, the defending Stanley Cup champion Panthers (42-25-3, 87 points) have lost four of their last six after Saturday’s 6-3 loss to the Washington Capitals, which was the finale of a six-game road trip.
“We’ve had a couple tough nights here on this road trip,” Florida coach Paul Maurice said. “It’s been six games, and you’d like to be .500 or better when you’re on the road and we failed to do that, but we won’t fold the season.”
The Panthers and Capitals had a wild six-goal first period on Saturday in which Florida fell behind and then tied the score three times. Sam Bennett had a goal and an assist and defenseman Seth Jones and Jonah Gadjovich also scored for the Panthers.
“I think we gave up too many odd-man rushes,” Bennett said. “They were coming with all this speed through the neutral zone and I think we just, too many times we let them get in for breakaways or odd-man rushes. We can’t let that happen.”
Washington scored twice in the first minute of the second period and added a third goal before the six-minute mark for its winning margin.
“We were tied at that point and they came out hot in the second period, and I guess we just kind of weren’t quite ready,” Gadjovich said. “But there was still plenty of game left to answer back, and we just didn’t quite have it there in the second half of the game.”
–Field Level Media
