Penguins top Kings for 10th straight home win
Matt Murray had 34 saves in his 100th career game to lead the Pittsburgh Penguins to their 10th straight home win, 3-1 over the Los Angeles Kings on Thursday night at PPG Paints Arena in Pittsburgh.
Evgeni Malkin, Zach Aston-Reese and Ryan Reaves scored for the Penguins, who recorded a home win streak of 10 or more games for the sixth time in franchise history. The team record is 13-0-0 set from Nov. 15, 2013 to Jan. 15, 2014.
Murray improved to 7-0-1 in his last eight starts. Pittsburgh has outscored its opponents, 50-26, during the 10-game home win streak
Defenseman Dion Phaneuf, acquired in a four-player trade with Ottawa on Tuesday, scored the lone goal for Los Angeles, which dropped its third straight game despite an outstanding performance in goal by Jonathan Quick (36 saves).
After a scoreless 20 minutes, the teams traded goals 76 seconds apart midway through the second period. Reaves, stopped by Quick on a breakaway earlier in the game, gave the Penguins a 1-0 lead when he intercepted a clearing pass near the blue line in the Kings' zone and then snapped a wrist shot past Quick's stick side from the right circle.
But the Kings came right back to tie it when Phaneuf redirected a crossing pass from Adrian Kempe into the left side of the net for his fourth goal of the season.
Pittsburgh, which entered the contest with the top power play in the NHL (26.7 percent), then regained the lead, 2-1, at the 5:24 mark of the third period when Aston-Reese, screening Quick in the slot, deflected a shot by Kris Letang from the left point through the pads of the Kings' goaltender.
The Kings pulled Quick with a little over a minute to go but never got a shot on net before Malkin clinched it with an empty-netter off a pass from Sidney Crosby with 24.6 seconds left. It was the 32nd goal of the season for Malkin and also extended Crosby's scoring streak to 10 games (20 points).
--Field Level Media
