The three-game sweep of the NHL from Thursday starts in Pittsburgh where the Minnesota Wild defeated the Penguins, 4-2.
The Wild’s Eric Staal scored game-winner when he beat Marc-Andre Fleury early in the final frame.
WATCH: All Wild vs. Penguins highlights
“I’ve played them a lot,” Staal said. “Been out east for a long time (primarily with the Carolina Hurricanes) and played these guys on many occasions. They’ve been on the right side of it a lot, and fortunately for me, it’s a night where we got the better of them, but they’re a good team. They have a great team every year. It’s a challenge that I’m always excited to be a part of, and fortunately tonight I was on the right side of it.”
The Pens were outshot 44-41 and that raised some concerns for Pens head coach Mike Sullivan.
“It is a concern,” Sullivan said. “I think it’s hard to win consistently in this league if you’re giving up 40-plus shots a game. Having said that, we got 40-plus shots in the game as well. But I don’t think that’s the type of game that we’re trying to play.”
Devan Dubnyk made 39 saves for the win.
“We continued to get better as each minute went by in that game and it was a real big win for us.” Dubnyk said.
Fleury had 40 saves on the night.
Charlie Coyle, Nino Niederreiter and Jason Pominville also scored for the Wild.
Sidney Crosby and Patric Hornqvist were the Pens goal scorers.
In Sunrise, the Florida Panthers built a 2-0 lead over the San Jose Sharks and then surrendered four unanswered goals in a 4-2 loss.
Tommy Wingels scored the game-winner.
“It’s good,” Wingels said of getting wins in the first two games of a six-game road trip. “Long road trip here. You want to pile as many wins as you can in a row. Certainly it’s a good start for us. This League’s all about getting streaks, winning three, four, five in a row, and not going on losing streaks of that capacity. Good start for us, hopefully we can build a couple more on it.”
WATCH: All Sharks vs. Panthers highlights
Jason Demers scored twice in the first period as the Panthers toyed with the Sharks in the first 20 minutes of play.
“Once we got one – big effort by [Burns] there – I thought we gained some confidence in there,” Sharks forward Joel Ward said. “Just started to roll from there.”
Martin Jones made 22 saves for the win after settling down in the second period.
James Reimer took the loss on 25 saves.
In Nashville, the Predators got two goals from Calle Jarnkrok in a 3-1 win over the St Louis Blues.
“I feel like we’re starting to play better,” Jarnkrok said. “I still think that we can play a little bit better than what we’re doing. We’ve got to try to get better every day and just work hard.”
James Neal also scored for Nashville.
WATCH: All Blues vs. Predators highlights
“[Jarnkrok] is one of the smartest players, I think, in the game,” Predators forward Ryan Johansen said. “He’s so valuable to our club, and yeah definitely an underrated player on our team. He’ll won’t do all of the fancy stuff, but he does all of the little things right, which helps set up our team to win hockey games. He’s definitely a guy we can always count on. We saw tonight he’s able to make big plays too.”
Jaden Schwartz was the lone Blues scorer. Penalties slowed the Blues as they were whistled for five in the game.
“[Penalties are] part of it, but I think after a while, you start living on one goal, you’re not going to win many games,” Blues head coach Ken Hitchcock said. “I didn’t think we had any energy in the third period at all. It showed up in the first two goals we got scored on. We lost two board battles. Next thing you know, puck’s in our net. It’s disappointing. We played really well for 38 minutes and then gave up that tying goal and lost our energy.”
Pekka Rinne picked up the win on 23 saves and Carter Hutton took the loss on 25 saves.
“We’re just starting to play the way we know we can play. We’re just playing a lot better,” the Predators’ Mike Fisher. “We still feel there’s room to improve in a lot of areas, but there’s definitely good signs. We’re finding ways to get points. It’s nice to get a couple in a row and a big one tonight, and we’ve got to keep rolling because we’ve got some ground to catch up.”
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