Penguins Tame Wild On The Road

ST. PAUL, Minn. (AP) – Just four games into the season, injuries have decimated the top lines for the Pittsburgh Penguins as Evgeni Malkin, Nick Bjugstad, Alex Galchenyuk and Bryan Rust have all missed time. The Penguins still have Sidney Crosby, and a trio of callups helped pick up the load on Saturday. Crosby had a goal and assist, Adam Johnson and Sam Lafferty each scored his first career goal, and the short-handed Penguins held on to beat the winless Minnesota Wild 7-4 on Saturday night. Patric Hornqvist, Kris Letang, Joseph Blandisi and Jake Guentzel also scored in Pittsburgh’s first road game of the season. Matt Murray stopped 29 shots for the Penguins, who scored four times in the second period. Minnesota goalie Devan Dubnyk gave up five goals on 23 shots and was pulled midway through the second period. Alex Stalock made seven saves in relief. Jason Zucker, Jared Spurgeon, Brad Hunt and Luke Kunin scored for the Wild, who lost their home opener and fell to 0-4-0. Crosby continued his success against Minnesota – increasing his total to 23 points in 18 career games against the Wild – but Pittsburgh got support throughout the lineup while playing without four key forwards. Malkin and Bjugstad each missed his third straight game with a lower-body injury. Malkin was placed on long-term injured reserve. Rust hasn’t played this season with upper-body injury and Galchenyuk missed his second straight game with a lower-body injury. The four combined for 72 goals and 102 assists last season. After breaking out for seven goals in the last game played by Malkin and Bjugstad, the Penguins had scored three goals in the previous two games. The injuries forced the callups of Johnson, Lafferty and Blandisi. The three combined for three goals on Saturday while skating on the fourth line. Johnson started a Penguins surge later in the period as they scored three times in 2:28. Guentzel scored on the power-play for a 6-2 lead midway through the third before Minnesota scored twice in 21 seconds on goals from Hunt and Kunin.