PITTSBURGH (AP) – Matt Murray stood tall for the Pittsburgh Penguins during a key second-period sequence in which the short-handed Toronto Maple Leafs tried to make a push.
Murray turned aside the threat and the Penguins took over from there, putting away a tired Maple Leafs team in the final 20 minutes.
Sidney Crosby and Bryan Rust scored in the third period to help Pittsburgh pull away for a 4-1 victory over Toronto on Saturday night.
“I think sometimes you give up opportunities and we kind of dodged one with some of the chances they got,” Crosby said. “Those were some big saves and we were able to get those go-ahead goals after that.”
Evgeni Malkin and Chris Kunitz also scored and Murray stopped a career-high 35 shots as Pittsburgh won for the seventh time in nine games.
Zach Hyman scored for the Maple Leafs and Frederik Andersen had 45 saves in his second start in two nights. Toronto has won just once in its last eight on the road.
“I thought our fatigue showed a bit in the third period,” Leafs’ coach Mike Babcock said. “Our goalie was good and we gave up two, what I think, are bad goals that are D-zone coverage.”
Murray kept the game tied at 1 late in the second period, denying Connor Brown and Matt Martin on a pair of point-blank, short-handed opportunities, in addition to a stop on another odd-man rush.
“My job is to make the save at the right time, to bail them out when they need it, and they came out hot in the third,” said Murray, who has won his last 11 regular-season starts. “We were pretty much unstoppable in the third.”
Kunitz put the Penguins ahead with 18 seconds left in the period when he flipped the puck over a sprawled Andersen.
“To get that goal late in the second definitely gave us a big boost,” Crosby said.
Rust made it 3-1 at 6:58 of the third period when he took a feed from Crosby at the faceoff dot and put a shot on Andersen. He got his own rebound and darted to the net, sweeping a shot past Andersen’s outstretched pad.
Crosby extended the lead a little more than three minutes later, tapping in a twice-redirected shot from the top of the crease for his 10th of the season. Crosby, who missed the Penguins’ first six games with a concussion, has 10 goals and 13 points in his last nine.
The Penguins, who rebounded from their first regulation loss on home ice Thursday against Minnesota, extended their unbeaten stretch against Toronto to nine games, including seven in Pittsburgh.
“Everyone has been there with back-to-back games,” Crosby said. “Going into the third, it’s not easy, but I thought we did a good job of keeping our foot on the gas and applying pressure.”
