The Pittsburgh Penguins head into Saturday afternoon’s game at Winnipeg atop the NHL standings with 18 points and coming off the second most successful October in team history.
Pittsburgh went 8-2-2 in October, capped by a 4-1 victory over the Minnesota Wild on Thursday night in Saint Paul, Minn. The 18 points rank second only to the 22 accumulated in October of the 2009-10 season when the Penguins went 11-3-0 after winning the third Stanley Cup in team history a few months earlier.
It also marks the first time since Dec. 28, 2016, that Pittsburgh is in first place in the NHL standings after a minimum of 10 games. The Penguins went 24-8-5 after 37 games that season en route to completing the second half of back-to-back Stanley Cup championships.
Right wing Bryan Rust, who along with Ryan Shea had a goal and an assist in the win over the Wild, said the team isn’t making plans for any victory parades yet despite the good start.
“We’re taking it each day as it comes,” Rust said. “I don’t think we’re trying to get too far ahead of ourselves, and I think that we’re having a lot of fun with it.”
Goaltender Tristan Jarry stopped 27 of 28 shots to pick up his fourth straight win as Pittsburgh extended its points streak to eight games (6-0-2). A big key was the play of the penalty key unit which killed off all four Minnesota power-play chances. The Wild came into the contest leading the league with a 31.8% power play.
“He was awesome,” Pittsburgh coach Dan Muse said of Jarry’s play. “He’s the top guy on every penalty-killing unit. So whoever’s in net that day, we need them to be our best our best penalty killer. That’s always the case. And (Jarry) was.”
Pittsburgh, which also won 32 of 51 faceoffs (63%), has killed 12 of its last 13 penalties.
Winnipeg enters Saturday’s contest coming off a 6-3 home victory over the Chicago Blackhawks on Thursday as the top line of Mark Scheifele (one goal, two assists), Gabe Vilardi (two goals, one assist) and Kyle Connor (one goal, two assists) combined for nine points. Connor Hellebuyck stopped 21 shots while picking up his sixth win, tied for tops in the league entering Friday.
“That was a really good game … one of our best of the year,” Winnipeg coach Scott Arniel said. “I liked a lot of what we did, whether that was our coverage, whether that was our breakouts. I thought we were really good on our breakouts.”
“That was our most complete game,” Vilardi said. “We did a good job through the neutral zone and kind of limited their speed. Those young guys, they can really turn and burn when you have those turnovers. It was a good game.”
Defenseman Josh Morrissey, who had a goal and an assist, agreed.
“I think it was our best 60-minute effort,” Morrissey said. “There’s always things to clean up but there’s a lot to build on. There’s been a lot of talk about our second periods and how we did a better job in that frame. So, yeah, it’s a good win and we have to keep building.”
