Pens dominate Caps, leap into 2nd place in Metropolitan

Coming into this weekend the Penguins were staring two huge games against the Philadelphia Flyers and the Washington Capitals. With the Flyers dispatched with relative ease on Saturday afternoon the attention turned to the league leading Capitals and Sunday evening.

The Capitals are the leading scorers in the Eastern Division and the biggest plan to beat them would involve limiting their chances and restricting their league leading #1 Power play unit from getting opportunities. Other the weekend the plan of stifling opposition offence work with the Flyers getting just 16 shots and the Capitals just 18. The only two power play opportunities that the Capitals did get the Penguins were able to kill it off relatively easily.

The Capitals had the best of the early stages and dominated the Penguins for a good period but the Penguins made their own chances count. The third line is this game could have been mistaken for the Penguins best players from an outsider and the first goal was full of skill that you would expect to see in seasoned players, not two players who have been called up this season from Wilkes-Barre. Rust broke through and collected a pass from Kuhnhackl before deking the puck around Holtby.

Crosby continued his current points streak to 12 games, breaking his 11 game streak set earlier in 2016 off Trevor Daley's backhand goal from close up after leaving the defence for dead. Despite being 2-0 up the Penguins lead slipped from their grasp with some luck off a poor Fleury poke check. Burakovsky tied it up after breaking free from the box after a scuffle between the two sets of players.

From that point on the Penguins controlled the game and scored four goals in a row to chase Holtby from the game. Matt Cullen continued to reap rewards for his cheap contract with a shot that hit Holtby's shoulder and bounced in. Crosby picked up his second point in the game with a quick turnover and pass to Kunitz who buried it.

Justin Schultz ended the game with his first goal for the Penguins on the powerplay, which had struggled greatly without Malkin. With this win the Penguins leapfrogged the New York  Rangers to temporarily take the second Metropolitan spot and potential home ice. With the Devils next there is no reason the Penguins can't extend their win streak to 7 games.