Pens avoid sweep by lowly Devils

Associated Press

NEWARK, N.J.

The Pittsburgh Penguins seem to be getting their act together for a playoff push and one clear sign of that is finally finding a way to beat the New Jersey Devils.

Bryan Rust scored a tiebreaking goal midway through the second period and the Penguins avoided the embarrassment of being swept by the lowly Devils with a 4-3 victory on Tuesday night.

“Even last year, it was kind of the same way,” said Zach Aston-Reese, who scored for the Penguins along with Chad Ruhwedel and Nick Bjugstad. “They had our number. It’s nice to get that one, especially going down the stretch to the playoffs. Those are important wins.”

Coupled with Montreal’s win over Columbus, the Penguins moved into third place in the Metropolitan Division. They have won four of the last five games in their bid to make the playoffs for the 13th straight year. The streak is the longest active playoff run in the NHL.

Penguins coach Mike Sullivan said his team was really good in the second period when it scored twice to take a 4-2 lead.

“I think at this time of the year guys are playing so hard that the games are so tight,” he said. “We need everybody to have the juice. We need to play the game the way we want to play it. so I thought our second period was really strong, but thought the guys played hard all night.”

Matt Murray made 33 saves, including 15 in the third period, to help the Penguins salvage the final game in the four-game season series.

“New Jersey always plays us really well,” Ruhwedel said. “They come out hard but that second period was really good by us. We were in the offensive zone a lot. Guys were moving their feet. It was fun to be part of.”

Jesper Bratt, Marcus Johansson and Miles Wood scored for the Devils, who had a two-game winning streak snapped. Keith Kinkaid had 24 saves in losing to the Penguins for the first time in four games this season.

“It could be the story of the season, we don’t play a full 60 [minutes],” Kinkaid said. Rust broke a 2-all tie at 10:45 with a shot from the inside of the right circle after a great rush up the ice by Jake Guentzel. Kinkaid got a piece of the shot but the puck squirted through his pads and rolled into the net.