ST. PAUL, Minn. — Sidney Crosby had two goals and two assists, and the Pittsburgh Penguins defeated the Minnesota Wild 6-4 at Xcel Energy Center on Thursday.
Jake Guentzel had a goal and two assists, and Tristan Jarry made 19 saves for the Penguins (7-7-3), who won for the third time in their past five games.
“Two points on the road,” Guentzel said. “It’s good to get two points. Some things to clean up, but a tough team to play against tonight, so it’s good to get two points.”
Joel Eriksson Ek scored twice, and Filip Gustavsson made 26 saves for the Wild (7-8-2), who have lost three straight games and five of seven.
“Playing in the NHL is not easy. It’s not going to come easy,” Gustavsson said. “We need to work way harder than we are right now and find a way to win. It’s more fun to win. Everyone hates losing. We’ve got to stop doing it.”
Video: PIT@MIN: Crosby’s wrister makes it 1-0 in the 1st
Crosby gave Pittsburgh a 1-0 lead at 8:15 of the first period with a wrist shot from the top of the left face-off circle, and Ryan Poehling extended it to 2-0 at 17:03 with a one-timer off a pass Teddy Blueger.
The Penguins allowed five shots on goal, and scored on two of their four shots in the opening period.
“We got a good start,” Crosby said. “We didn’t have many shots, but I thought we controlled the play.”
Brandon Duhaime cut it to 2-1 at 4:31 of the second period Marcus Foligno intercepted the puck at the blue line and fed him for a shot from the right circle.
Eriksson Ek scored 12 seconds later to tie it 2-2 at 4:43 when he crashed the net and knocked in his own rebound, but Kris Letang scored his first of the season to give Pittsburgh a 3-2 lead at 18:20 with a one-timer on a 5-on-3 power play.
“I thought the 5-on-3 goal in the second period was a huge goal for our team, just a huge momentum boost for us,” Penguins coach Mike Sullivan said. “Those guys had been working hard at it and I was happy for them.
“There was a lot to like about the game. We still had some lapses in the game where we hurt ourselves, so to speak. We’ve got to continue working at getting better at those circumstances. For a lot of the night, we really liked our game. Obviously, when you score that many goals it helps your chances.”
Crosby increased the lead to 4-2 at 5:50 of the third period with a backdoor tap-in on a power play.
Video: PIT@MIN: Crosby scores his second goal of the game
Eriksson Ek cut it to 4-3 at 11:23, scoring off the rush for a short-handed goal.
Brock McGinn made it 5-3 at 14:43 with a wrist shot off a turnover by the Wild forward Mats Zuccarelloand Guentzel scored an empty-net goal to make it 6-3 at 16:31.
“Obviously, we’re not scoring enough goals,” Minnesota coach Dean Evason said. “You can look at four, but we had opportunities, probably, to score earlier and didn’t. First period we’re down. We actually played a good period, but we battled. We clawed. We got back in the game and obviously, we didn’t do enough as a group to get it done.”
Matt Dumba scored with eight seconds remaining on a one-timer from the left circle for the 6-4 final.
“We’ve got a lot of new guys in the lineup and we have to find our identity and play the whole way 60 minutes and that’s how we have to win games,” Foligno said. “We’ve got to win games 2-1. It’s gonna be ugly. We don’t have the firepower that we thought we did. … We need guys to step up. I just feel like we’ve got to find our identity of becoming [a team] that wins tight games.”
NOTES: Wild forwards Kirill Kaprizov (six points; two goals, four assists) and Zuccarello (five points; one goal, four assists) each extended his point streak to five games. … Crosby scored his 100th career game-opening goal, becoming the second active NHL player to reach the mark (Alex Ovechkin of the Washington Capitals, 134), and tied Mario Lemieux for the most in Penguins history. He passed Gordie Howe for the 10th-most three-point games in NHL history (163) and is one behind Jari Kurri. … Minnesota forward Tyson Jost had 7:54 of ice time after being a healthy scratch for three games.
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