Pens stop rut, beat Columbus

The Penguins will go into the Christmas break with their first win under Mike Sullivan under their belt. They defeated the Columbus Blue Jackets 5-2 in a fast paced, heated game that saw Phil Kessel have a two goal night. The Penguins were looking for revenge on the Blue Jackets after a 2-1 loss in November.

The Penguins were without their star player,  Sidney Crosby, who was out of the game with a lower body injury. He is expected to be out day-to-day but the Penguins next game isn't until December 26th. Malkin was given top line duties and he didn't disappoint in his increased responsibilities.

The Penguins fell behind in the first period in Matt Murray's second period. A shot rebounded off the boards and into an open space for Wennberg to score his third of the season. The Penguins dominated the second period 10 shots to 7 and scored two quick goals 1:18 apart early in the second through Malkin and Kessel.

The Penguins dominated the game from there on out and controlled the shot clock, limiting the Blue Jackets to just 24 shots throughout the game helping Murray to his 1st NHL win.

The game was tainted somewhat by a reckless piece of play late on by Dalton Prout who crosschecked Sergei Plotnikov 5 times in the neck after a fair hit by the Russian on Prout with just 58 seconds remaining in the game. The reaction from the Department of Player Safety was...nothing. Which is ridiculous, they won't actually take action for these types of incidents until it is too late and injured.

The Penguins are off until the 26th of December where they start a double header away against the Wild and the Jets. Sullivan has gotten the team playing better hockey and they might start seeing results now.