NEW YORK — Kris Letang turned the primary defenseman in NHL historical past to file 5 factors in a interval with 5 assists within the second for the Pittsburgh Penguins, who scored six instances within the interval and beat the New York Islanders 7-0 on Wednesday evening.
Letang completed with six assists and was the primary participant at any place in Penguins historical past with 5 in a interval.
“That’s an unbelievable feat when you think about it,” Pittsburgh coach Mike Sullivan stated. “Especially in today’s game when the parity in the league is so high. Against a good team like the Islanders, it’s not an easy thing to do. Couldn’t be happier for him, obviously he’s an elite player for us.”
Jake Guentzel and Evgeni Malkin every scored twice within the second interval for the Penguins, and Tristan Jarry completed with 21 saves for his fourth shutout of the season.
Rickard Rakell, Radim Zohorna and Valtteri Puustinen additionally scored for Pittsburgh. Marcus Pettersson picked up 4 assists.
Ilya Sorokin made 19 saves because the Islanders‘ nine-game level streak on dwelling ice (6-0-3) got here to an finish. Semyon Varlamov changed Sorokin to start the third interval and made six saves.
Pittsburgh‘s six goals came during a stretch of 10:27 in the second.
“After a break, the first period is always ugly,” Letang said after his record-setting performance. “After that, once your legs get going, your hands are coming back, we took advantage offensively, played in their zone, putting pucks at the net. … When you come back and you are about to win a game against a division rival like this and somebody you are chasing, it’s large.”
Guentzel scored twice inside 12 seconds to present the Penguins a 3-0 lead. He cleverly redirected Letang’s shot that was headed huge of the online previous Sorokin previous to changing a breakaway.
Letang took benefit of a niche within the Islanders‘ neutral-zone coverage and hit Guentzel with a pass in stride behind New York’s protection.
Islanders coach Lane Lambert referred to as timeout between Guentzel’s objectives in an effort to get management of the sport, however the Penguins continued to transform and capitalize on the Islanders‘ poor defensive structure.
“It’s well timed,” Sullivan stated of Guentzel’s objectives. “Anytime you have those situations after goals are scored on either side, timeouts are taken or things of that nature, they’re opportunities for momentum to change or to build. When Jake scores that one, that was a huge one as far as building on the momentum that we already established.”
Malkin prolonged the result in 4 objectives when Reilly Smith discovered him on their own within the slot at 12:48. Malkin struck once more in a while a cross from Letang, his fourth help of the interval.
Zohorna capped off the six-goal interval together with his fourth of the season at 17:13.
“When you have momentum, you have to capitalize,” Pettersson stated. “We stayed around the puck, we were hungry on the puck, everyone wanted pucks, it’s easy to play that way.”
Pittsburgh scored six objectives in a interval on the street for the primary time since March 21, 2000, additionally in opposition to the Islanders.
Islanders defenseman Noah Dobson was on the ice for 4 objectives whereas Pittsburgh outshot New York 20-7 within the center interval.
Rakell buried a unfastened puck that squeaked previous Sorokin at 6:44 of the second interval to kick off the outburst.
“It was just a very poorly played second period of hockey,” Islanders coach Lane Lambert stated. “Every time we turned around the puck was in our net.”
Puustinen transformed a one-time feed from Letang halfway by the third interval for his first NHL aim.
UP NEXT
Penguins: Host St. Louis on Saturday.
Islanders: Host Washington on Friday.
