The Penguins have a very happy return from IR in Evgeni Malkin coming back after being out for the last 15 games with a shoulder injury. Stuart Skinner is in the net.

The visiting New Jersey Devils are going with the following personnel:

The Penguins strike first, it’s Erik Karlsson on the rush jumping up in the play and lifting a shot up and over Jake Allen. 1-0 early.

The rest of the period is the Stuart Skinner show, the goalie stops Jesper Bratt on a breakaway, Dawson Mercer on a good look, Nico Hischier with a bang-bang play in front and all 11 shots that New Jersey throws his way.

Connor Dewar lifts his stick into the throat area of a Devil to send NJ away with the first power play of the game. Pittsburgh kills it off and, even better, Rickard Rakell springs Dewar for a clean breakaway when Dewar got out of the box. Dewar beats Allen low to extend the lead to 2-0.

The Pittsburgh first line puts on a clinic, swarming all over the offensive zone looking for another tally. The Devils escape. A little later Ryan Shea hits the post. By the second TV timeout the shot total for the period is 12-5 PIT. Malkin knocks a puck away from a Devil and narrowly shoots wide on the rush.

Ryan Shea gets his stick chopped in two, Pittsburgh gets their first power play. In the early going Malkin is tripped and the refs call it. Long time of a 5v3. They get one look for Rakell inside but don’t make the most of it by any means for a while but NJ can’t hold off forever. Crosby finds Malkin with a pass and the big guy unleashes a huge shot from the right side, Allen can’t keep up laterally. 3-0 game.

Solid period for the home team. They could have easily had more than the two goals scored in the middle frame to pad their lead based on the time on the puck and some of the looks generated.

Malkin heads to the box early in the period. The Devils are able to convert and get on the board, some nice puck movement leads to a blast from the point from Luke Hughes goes into the net. (To the opponent’s goal. You have to specify that with Luke Hughes these days). 3-1 game with 17:09 to go.

The Pens get another power play, despite Malkin diving for a puck near the net and creating chaos they don’t score.

What the skill players can’t do, the fourth liners can a little later. Dewar starts the play with nice wall play to knock the clearing attempt into the middle of the ice. Noel Acciari one ups him with a nicer play of his own to pass the puck through Brett Pesce and all Lizotte has to do is go to the net and keep his stick on the ice to angle the puck in. 4-1 game.

That does it for this one, Pittsburgh skates off with a 4-1 win, the Devils have to be wondering where they go from here.

The Pens stretch their winning streak to six games. The opponent tonight is taking on water, but it was as important to not allow a division rival to get right with a response game that could have breathed some life into their season. Important win in the big scheme of things, a NJ regulation win tonight would have put them just one point behind the Pens in the standings (Pittsburgh does currently have two games in hand). Instead, the gap is five points coming out of this game and the Pens still have the two games in hand. That’s a big, big swing in how a season can play out down the stretch by taking care of business in a game like this. Now Pittsburgh moves on to another weekend of two afternoon games starting with Calgary at home on Saturday.