Malkin gets 30th goal in Pens’ win

Associated Press

PITTSBURGH

Evgeni Malkin, James Neal and Chris Kunitz have spent most of the last two months carrying the Pittsburgh Penguins while captain Sidney Crosby works his way back from concussion-like symptoms.

The Penguins’ top line hardly looks weary from the burden.

Malkin added to his NHL-leading point total, scoring his 30th goal of the season and dishing out four assists as the trio combined for three goals and 11 points in an 8-5 whipping of the Winnipeg Jets on Saturday.

“We talked before the game, we wanted to just move the puck,” Malkin said. “We felt great, everyone. [We were] just moving the puck. It’s an easy play.”

At least, it’s easy the way the Malkin and company are playing it. Kunitz had a goal and three assists, and Neal scored his 29th goal and added an assist as Pittsburgh roared back from an early 2-0 deficit to beat the Jets for the 10th straight time at home.

Jets coach Claude Noel lashed out at his team because of a lack of effort.

“Quite frankly, I find it disrespectful, you know, the players being disrespectful to each other, the goaltender and everything,” Noel said. “I thought it was poor. We didn’t win battles; wherever you want to go.”

Kris Letang scored twice and had an assist for the Penguins. Richard Park notched his 100th career NHL goal, and Jordan Staal scored in his first game after missing more than a month with a left knee injury.

“It was a wide-open game, and obviously we wanted to play a little bit tighter game,” said Staal, who also assisted on Dustin Jeffrey’s first-period goal. “We gave them one too many chances to get back in the game and we obviously did a great job offensively to stay ahead of them, but we’ve got to play better defensively if we want to keep winning.”

Tim Stapleton, Dustin Byfuglien and Bryan Little all had a goal and an assist for the Jets, but Winnipeg couldn’t keep up when the Penguins got going. Ondrej Pavelec stopped just 31 of 39 shots and fell to 1-9 against Pittsburgh.

Pittsburgh’s Marc-Andre Fleury wasn’t much sharper, stopping 20 of 25 shots, but he had the luxury of playing behind a high-scoring offense.