Canucks drift along in 4-1 loss to Penguins

In Pittsburgh, the Penguins breezed past a faltering Vancouver Canucks side that seems less than interested in their schedule.

Tristan Jarry made 36 saves in the Pens win.

Pittsburgh improved to 9-6-4.

“I thought Tristan was terrific again tonight,” Pittsburgh head coach Mike Sullivan said. “We gave up a fair amount of high-quality chances. We got a fair amount ourselves, but I thought we gave up a fair amount, more than we prefer. Tristan was there to make a lot of timely saves for us.

“He’s seeing it right now. He looks really comfortable in the net. His rebound control is really good. His handles have been more decisive. … He’s playing extremely well for us. That’s one of the reasons why we’ve kind of rode him here over the last stretch of games.”

Bo Horvat scored the Canucks only goal to make the score 3-1 in favor the Pens in the third period.

head “Guys are worried about how to get their game going, find their game,” Vancouver coach Travis Green said. “I thought we were slow tonight getting out of the gate. … When you’re not playing well, you look a little slow. I thought, overall, we struggled with their footspeed a little bit tonight.”

Vancouver dropped to 6-12-2.

Bryan Rust opened the scoring in the middle frame with a power play goal for a 1-0 lead to the Pens.

“I’ve been there before,” Rust said. “I’ve gone through streaks where I haven’t produced, I haven’t played well. You’ve got to just kind of stick with the process. You almost have to simplify. You just have to keep working. I think I tried to do that. I was rewarded with a goal tonight.”

Evan Rodrigues and Zach Aston-Reese followed up with strikes of their own to give Pittsburgh a 3-0 lead heading to the third period.

“I think we’re building,” Aston-Reese said. “That third period in [a 3-1 win at the Winnipeg Jets on Monday], we were good from the first shift on. We were able to build on it tonight. … For the most part we’re trending in the right direction.”

Brock McGinn hit for an empty-net goal in the third period for the 4-1 final.

Thatcher Demko made 33 saves in the Canucks loss.

“We’ve shown bits and pieces throughout the year, lots of stretches, that we’re a good hockey team,” Horvat said. “We were doing a lot of good things earlier on [this season]. I don’t know if we’re just pressing too hard to score or just trying to play out of our element to try to turn things around.”