The sweep of the NHL from Wednesday night starts in Boston where despite a new coach, the Pittsburgh Penguins continue to struggle. The Bruins took a 3-0 decision on the Pens who are 1-4-1 in their six games.
Tuukka Rask made 34 saves for the shutout.
Tuukka Rask stopped 34 shots in shutout of Pens – file photo by Lewis Bleiman
“It’s just when we play our system, it’s very helpful for goalies,” Rask said. “Today they had a lot of shots again, but for the most part they kept them outside. So when we do that, it gives us a chance to win and keep the goals-against low.”
Jimmy Hayes, Max Talbot and Ryan Spooner scored for Boston.
“Jimmy’s going to have success by going to the net like he did tonight. He’s really good at either tipping pucks or finding loose pucks,” Bruins coach Claude Julien said. “Tonight, that’s what he tried to do, and (he) had some success doing it.”
It was Hayes’ first goal in 16 games.
“It’s happened to me before, but you kind of want to find a way out of it,” Hayes said of his slump. “But that’s what you’ve got to do, go to the net and get a greasy one. You want to make sure you keep going and get a greasy one.”
Under new coach Mike Sullivan, the Pens 0-2-0 and have scored one goal.
“Those things happen, but we’ve got to find a way to score some ugly ones,” Penguins captain Sidney Crosby said. “Once we get one or two, hopefully the flood gates open up for us but we can’t let it bother us; at the same time, we can’t accept it. I mean, yeah we hit a couple crossbars, but teams hit crossbars and they score different ways too. That’s totally on us to find ways to score goals and it might have to be ugly ones until we start to get some bounces.”
Jeff Zatkoff took the loss on 26 saves.
“I think we are playing hard,” Sullivan said. “I think our energy is there. I think our effort is there. I think sometimes we don’t play as smart as we can and we turn pucks over in the wrong areas of the rink and it makes for a hard game because you end up on the wrong side of the puck. You end up chasing the game a little bit. For me, one of the things I am going to try to do here over the next little while is just to try to focus on the details of what it means to try to play the right way.”
Braden Holtby notched 20th win Wednesday night – file photo by Lewis Bleiman
In Washington, Braden Holtby won his league-leading 20th game of the season in a 2-1 win over the Ottawa Senators.
“He makes us all look good,” Capitals coach Barry Trotz said. “He’s an eraser. Good goaltending erases a lot of mistakes, and he’s erased a lot of mistakes for us in our first part of the season. He’s a workhorse, he’s a focused athlete. I think his mental toughness is off the charts and I think everybody in our room would agree (that) he’s the most valuable player with us so far this year.”
He had 26 saves on the night.
“We came out with the right mindset tonight,” Holtby said. “Had a good game plan going in, we knew how skilled [the Senators] are off the rush. Got away from it a little bit in the second period, but our first period set us up pretty well for the rest of the game. Obviously, a huge goal from [Latta].”
Michael Latta and John Carlson scored for Washington.
Andrew Hammond made 23 saves in his first start since suffering a concussion in early November.
“Felt pretty comfortable in there,” Hammond said. “It was one of those games where it was pretty easy to get into it early on. I felt like I settled into it pretty quick. It was one of those tight, low-scoring games where you couldn’t give them much. Ultimately, it was a night where there weren’t going to be a lot of goals scored, but we ended up on the wrong end of that.”
Bobby Ryan scored for the Sens with just over four minutes left in regulation.
“We gave them too much respect early and let them go,” Ryan said. “They are a heck of a hockey team. You’ve got to live with what they are going to create and you have to be ready for that. But we let them create more than they deserved and that’s just a lack of direction on our part in the first period.”
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