Bryan Rust scored twice in a three-point performance and the host Pittsburgh Penguins rode a four-goal first period to a 5-4 victory over the Vancouver Canucks on Wednesday.
Blake Lizotte, Rickard Rakell and Kevin Hayes also scored for the Penguins. Erik Karlsson notched three assists, and Sidney Crosby collected two helpers.
Pittsburgh goaltender Tristan Jarry made 25 saves to post his first victory in more than a month.
Quinn Hughes netted one goal and two assists while Elias Pettersson collected one goal and one assist for the Canucks, who saw their eight-game road winning streak snapped despite a furious comeback attempt.
Aatu Raty and Pius Suter both added goals in the defeat, and goalie Arturs Silovs stopped 18 of 23 shots. Silovs has surrendered 25 goals in six starts this season.
Looking to snap a three-game losing skid, the Penguins received a much-needed strong start when Lizotte opened the scoring at the 3:59 mark. Lizotte converted a sharp-angled offering for his third goal of the season in his first game after missing five outings due to a concussion.
Raty put the Canucks on the board at 8:52 by snapping a second-chance shot from the slot for his second of the season.
Rakell restored Pittsburgh’s lead four minutes later by taking advantage of a loose puck at the doorstep for his eighth of the campaign.
Hayes extended the Pittsburgh lead at 15:14 of the first by chipping a close-in chance on the power play for his fourth of the season. Rust made it a 4-1 affair 2 1/2 minutes later when he converted Crosby’s pass on an odd-man rush.
Rust then notched his second of the night and seventh of the season at 3:40 of the second period, snapping a top-corner shot from the top of the right circle.
The Canucks did not pack it in. Suter made it a 5-2 game exactly 10 minutes later by blasting a shot from the left faceoff dot for his seventh goal of the season.
Hughes made it a two-goal deficit 40 seconds into the third period with a coast-to-coast rush that ended by him slipping through a pair of defenders and burying his fifth goal of the season.
Pettersson’s seventh of the season with 106 seconds remaining in regulation, coming with the goalie on the bench for the extra attacker, pulled Vancouver within one, but it was too little, too late.
