In Pittsburgh, the Penguins scored six time in the middle frame on Saturday to erase a 2-1 deficit to the Tampa Bay Lighting en route to a 7-3 win on Sunday.
“Tonight, we had some looks we were able to finish on,” Pittsburgh coach Mike Sullivan said. “I think we’ve generated a lot of quality looks here over the last handful of games. It’s nice that our guys got rewarded tonight for it, for sure.”
Casey DeSmith made 26 saves in the Pittsburgh win.
The Penguins moved to 29-21-9 on their second straight win.
Evgeni Malkin started the second period barrage when he tied the game, 2-2, at 6:17.
Sidney Crosby scored off the power play at 15:28 for a 3-2 lead, and Teddy Blueger hit for what would be the winner at 16:20.
“Obviously, take that penalty there and they score on the power play,” Lightning captain Steven Stamkos said. “Kind of sucked the life out of us a little bit. I don’t know the details, but that was obviously tough. I thought it was a decent game before that.”
The Pens were only just getting going.
“It just unraveled,” Tampa Bay coach Jon Cooper said. “I haven’t been a part of that, I don’t know if ever, in this league. I guess it happens at times. Just doesn’t feel very good when it happens to you.”
Jeff Carter made it 5-2 at 17:50, and Jason Zucker scored just 47 after that goal for a 6-2 lead.
“Just overall, good team effort,” Blueger said. “Had to fight through it. It’s obviously a good feeling to score at any time, but especially when you haven’t done it in a while.”
Brian Dumoulin completed the avalanche to make it 7-2 with five seconds left in the period.
Tampa had taken a 2-1 lead in the first period on goals from Anthony Cirelli and Nikita Kucherov.
“To get 700 points in this league is remarkable,” Cooper said of Kucherov, who has 269 goals and 432 assists in 621 NHL games. “To do it in like 600-plus games or whatever he did, in a bleak night, that’s a little bit of a shining moment. So we’ll hang our hat on that.”
Those two goals came after the Pens scored first on a marker from Drew O’Connor for a 1-0 lead.
“I think we’ve just kind of responded in a good way after a tough week (lost previous four prior to St. Louis win),” O’Connor said. “I think yesterday was a really good game for us. I think we kind of just continued that today.”
Brayden Point scored off the power play in the third period to dress up the final, 7-3.
Brian Elliott made 29 saves in the Tampa loss.
“Didn’t give our goalie a chance to save some of those pucks,” Tampa Bay defenseman Mikhail Sergachev said. “That’s what happened.”
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