The Pittsburgh Penguins snapped a six-game skid with a 7-3 win Tuesday night over the visiting Ottawa Senators.
Bryan Rust had a hat trick to drive the Pens.
Bryan Rust led Penguins with hat trick – file photo by Lewis Bleiman
“There was a lot of collective, cooperative effort out there,” Penguins coach Mike Sullivan said. “Guys finished. They were on the puck. They had some quality chances, and they finished. You’ve got to give the players credit.”
Matt Murray made 23 saves to earn the win.
Jayce Hawryluk, Brady Tkachuk and Connor Brown were the Sens strikers.
“We felt like we had them on the ropes too,” Tkachuk said. “We were taking it to them at that point. There was a shift off where it was just kind of a bad break. Kind of changes the tide for the rest of the game. We thought we had good jump at the start and kind of made things interesting, but towards the end, we just kind of let [Anderson] out to dry.”
Sidney Crosby, Jason Zucker, John Marino, and Conor Sheary added single markers for the Pens.
“It was definitely nice to see some pucks go in the net,” Rust said. “We’ve hit a lot of posts. Missed some open nets. … Any time you can get a hat trick, it’s definitely pretty fun.”
[WATCH: All Senators vs. Penguins highlights]
Craig Anderson made 28 saves to take the loss.
“I didn’t think we played a smart game,” Senators head coach D.J. Smith. “I think we tried to come back. We made it 5-3. We had good effort in the third period, just we were careless with the puck. We hung [Anderson] out to dry.”
You must be logged in to post a comment.