Bryan Rust on Saturday scored two unassisted goals, Tristan Jarry made 23 saves and the Pittsburgh Penguins shut out the Washington Capitals 3-0 to reclaim first place in the East Division.
Trade deadline pickup Jeff Carter also scored his fourth goal in 10 games in a Penguins uniform, while Jarry registered his second shutout of the season as the Penguins beat the Capitals for the sixth time in eight meetings this season.
“We kind of just set a blueprint for ourselves on how we’ve got play to beat this team — things we’ve got to do kind of in the defensive zone, through the offensive zone and I think that’s important moving forward,” said Rust, whose goals were the 99th and 100th of his NHL career.
Photo: AFP
Two nights after each team clinched a playoff berth, this potential postseason preview looked awfully lopsided. The Penguins pounced on opportunities and scored on three of their first 13 shots against Ilya Samsonov to suck the life out of the crowd of just more than 2,000.
“Obviously, you’re going to have games like this,” Washington’s Nicklas Backstrom said. “They’re a good team. They were playing good defensively. Tough loss.”
It was far from the complement of talent either team would want in a playoff series. The Capitals did not have captain and leading goal-scorer Alex Ovechkin and top defenseman John Carlson because of lower-body injuries, and the Penguins remained without forward Evgeni Malkin and Brandon Tanev with injuries that have kept them out for several weeks.
Still, Pittsburgh has not slowed down. With captain Sidney Crosby inching into the MVP discussion, the Penguins have won 16 of 23 games without Malkin and again look like a legitimate Stanley Cup contender.
“It’s just trying to put us in the best possible position come playoff time and I think that’s our mindset,” Jarry said. “We want to do as well as we can in each game and try and finish the season strong and put us in a good position come the time the playoffs start.”
The Capitals did not get the save they needed from Samsonov either when Garnet Hathaway fell down on Rust’s first goal or when Dmitry Orlov could not get back after the puck bounced off him on Rust’s second.
The Penguins had five saves from Jarry during a two-minute span late in the second period when the Capitals were buzzing. Jarry had his left pad on a shot by Anthony Mantha driving to the net and slid over to deny Evgeny Kuznetsov to keep it a shutout.
Pittsburgh went into the season with a goaltending question after trading Matt Murray to the Ottawa Senators and turning the duties over to Jarry and Casey DeSmith.
Now Washington might have a problem in net, since neither Samsonov nor Vitek Vanecek has any playoff experience.
No team since 1945 has won the Cup dressing goalies in the playoffs who combined for fewer than 100 regular-season starts. Samsonov and Vanecek would likely have 77 between them.
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