ST. PAUL, Minn. (AP) — Sidney Crosby had two goals and two assists for a season-high four points and the Pittsburgh Penguins beat the Minnesota Wild 6-4 on Thursday night.
Ryan Poehling, Kris Letang, Brock McGinn and Jake Guentzel also scored for the Penguins and Tristan Jarry stopped 19 shots. Pittsburgh is 3-1-1 after losing seven straight.
“I thought we controlled the play and obviously special teams were big for most of the night,” Crosby said. “We’ve had our struggles there, and we have to be difference makers on the power play and tonight it was the difference maker for the game.”
Joel Eriksson Ek scored twice and Brandon Duhaime and Matt Dumba added goals for the Wild. Filip Gustavsson, filling in for the injured Marc-Andre Fleury, made 26 saves.
“It is uncharacteristic that we’re not doing those simple things consistently each and every night, because sometimes we’re doing them, sometimes we’re not,” Wild coach Dean Evason said. “There’s different components of our game going sideways. So, we’ve got to keep grinding.”
Pittsburgh took advantage of a 5-on-3 power play late in the second to take a 3-2 lead, with Letang rapping home a pass from Crosby for his first of the season.
Crosby doubled the lead early in the third with his second of the night, a power-play goal.
“Coach always talks about resilience and I think we did a good job of that tonight,” Poehling said. “We had a two-goal lead early in the game. They came back and made it 2-2, but we didn’t go and shy away from that. We just continued to play our game and it ended up working out for us.”
NOTES
Fleury was placed on the injured list Wednesday after suffering an upper-body injury Tuesday night at Nashville. … Guentzel had an empty-netter, giving him a four-game goal streak. … The Wild debuted their reverse retro uniforms, featuring a green jersey and pants patterned after the 1978 Minnesota North Stars uniforms.
UP NEXT
Penguins: At Winnipeg on Saturday night.
Wild: Hosts Carolina on Saturday night.
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