The Pittsburgh Penguins defeated the Ottawa Senators 4-1 at PPG Paints Arena in Pittsburgh last night.
Penguins goalie Tristan Jarry made 44 saves in his return from a lower-body injury he sustained in the Winter Classic that caused him to miss seven games. He was one save shy of his career high, which was 45 in a 3-2 loss to Tampa Bay in 2019. Forward Jake Guentzel had two goals and an assist and recorded 40 points for the sixth straight season. He is the fourth player in the past 20 years to reach that feat in franchise history. Only Sidney Crosby (11 seasons), Evgeni Malkin (seven seasons), and Chris Kunitz (six seasons) have done it since 2003. Also, forward Bryan Rust had two assists to help improve the Pens to a 23-15-7 record. The Penguins are now 2-0-1 in their last three games.
Forward Brady Tkachuk got a goal, and goalie Cam Talbot made 40 saves for the Sens, who dropped to 20-22-3 and have lost their last three out of four games.
In the first period, forwards Rickard Rakell and Jason Zucker scored 43 seconds apart to give the Penguins a 2-0 lead, with Rakell putting home a power-play goal at 11:14 and Zucker backhanding a shot past Talbot at 11:57.
At 17:12 of the second period, Guentzel would get his first of two goals when he snapped home a feed from Rust to make it 3-0 Pens. At 18:55, Tkachuk would bank a shot off Pens forward Sidney Crosby to put the Sens on the board. Tkachuk now has two goals and five points in his last two games.
Just over six minutes into the third period, Guentzel would get his second goal when a feed intended for Crosby would go off Sens defenseman Jacob Bernard-Docker to give the Pens the 4-1 lead. The Senators did outshoot the Penguins in the third 21-12.
Senators forward Mathieu Joesph had four hits and 12:04 of ice time in his first game since December 8th. He was out 17 games with a lower-body injury, then was a healthy scratch on Wednesday. Penguins forward Kasperi Kapanen is our week-to-week with a lower-body injury.
