In Pittsburgh, Mitchell Marner pushed his point streak to 16 games on Saturday with a goal and two points in a 4-1 Toronto Maple Leafs win over the Penguins.
“I guess it’s cool, but we’re trying to get wins as a hockey team,” Marner said. “We’re trying to do something special. We’re just trying to collect wins and do our thing. I’m just trying to go out there and buzz and do me.”
The Leafs improved to 13-5-5.
Erik Kallgren made 25 saves in the Toronto win.
Marner scored in the first period to give the Maple Leafs the early lead.
“We talked about how the recipe for us here of late has been to get off to good starts, control the game,” Toronto coach Sheldon Keefe said. “That’s sort of the way the game went the last time we were in here (a 5-2 win on Nov. 15). It’s the way it’s been on this trip. That set us up for success, for sure.”
Pittsburgh was outshot in the opening frame, 17-5.
“We didn’t have a good first right from the get-go,” Penguins defenseman Kris Letang said. “We didn’t apply pressure, we didn’t execute, we didn’t have any details in our game.”
The Pens dropped to 11-8-3.
“We got outplayed,” Pittsburgh coach Mike Sullivan said. “We just got outplayed. I think Toronto played hard. You have to give Toronto credit. They played hard, they defended hard. They made us work for our offense. I think we gave them some easy looks.”
In the middle frame, Pontus Holmberg  and William Nylander scored to push the lead to 3-0.
Richard Rakell scored just past the midway point in the third period to cut the Pens deficit to 3-1.
Auston Matthews scored at 14:36 of the third for the 4-1 final.
“It’s a good team over there, obviously. They’ve been playing really well lately,” Matthews said. “So I think we knew it was going to be a pretty big challenge for us tonight. … Limited their best guys. Try to limit them. Obviously, they’re going to get their looks, they’re too good not to, but I just thought (our) all-around game was just really solid.”
Casey DeSmith made 37 saves in the Pittsburgh loss.
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