Penguins shut out Golden Knights in dominant performance

King Jemison, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette on Mar 1, 2026

Published in Hockey

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PITTSBURGH — One day after blowing a multi-goal lead and losing another shootout against one of the worst teams in the league, the Pittsburgh Penguins had to face one of the best.

And they delivered one of their best performances of the season. The Penguins smashed the Vegas Golden Knights, 5-0, on Sunday at PPG Paints Arena.

Arturs Silovs registered his second shutout of the season. Pittsburgh converted multiple power plays and got goals from five different players in the dominant win over the Pacific Division leaders.

In the opening minutes of the game, the Penguins looked like a team that had played in New York less than 24 hours before. But some gritty defensive plays — including a hit from Parker Wotherspoon and a diving blocked shot by Blake Lizotte — seemed to wake them up.

They carried play from there in the opening period. Ben Kindel gave Pittsburgh a 1-0 lead at the first intermission with a dazzling individual play. The 18-year-old rookie took control of the puck in the neutral zone, weaved through traffic to the high slot and rifled in his seventh goal in nine games.

That was the 37th time in 59 games that the Penguins have scored first, tying the Washington Capitals for the league lead (in three fewer games).

But the Penguins had a good opening period in Saturday’s shootout loss to the Rangers, too, before squandering their momentum with a listless second period.

On Sunday, they built on the strong start with one of their best periods of the season — led by the team’s splendid special teams.

Egor Chinakhov got it started, firing in his 10th goal in 21 games as a Penguin off a beautiful feed from Tommy Novak. It wasn’t technically a power-play goal. But the team’s second power-play unit was still on the ice, and Mitch Marner was unable to join the play fast enough to stop Chinakhov six seconds after the Vegas center’s penalty expired.

About three minutes later, Avery Hayes dropped the gloves for the first time as an NHLer in a pretty uneventful fight with Cole Reinhardt. But the Penguins got a power play out of it, and the team’s first unit came through.

Bryan Rust punched in a rebound off an Erik Karlsson shot that Vegas netminder Adin Hill was unable to locate. That made Rust the sixth player in franchise history with seven straight 20-goal seasons.

Karlsson delivered another power-play assist later in the period, sliding a pass to his Swedish Olympic teammate, Rickard Rakell, in front of the net. Hill denied Rakell’s first attempt but not the second, and the Penguins took a 4-0 lead into the second intermission.

Justin Brazeau made it a five-goal advantage with about five minutes to play. Kindel carried the puck into the zone and dropped it to his trailing linemate. The big winger did the rest with a heavy drive from just outside the circle.

It was over when …

The Penguins’ dominant power play scored for essentially the third time in one period — technically, Chinakhov’s goal wasn’t a power-play tally, but it might as well have been — to take a comfortable lead into the final frame.

Stat of the game

5: The combined rank of the Penguins’ power play (3rd) and penalty kill (2nd) entering the game. They’re the only team in the top five of both categories.

Around the boards

— Penguins captain Sidney Crosby missed his third straight game with a lower-body injury suffered at the Olympics. The Penguins announced Wednesday that Crosby is expected to miss at least four weeks.

— Sunday’s game was the first of 17 in March for the Penguins, including several against top teams in the league. They play the league-leading Avalanche twice and the Metropolitan Division-leading Hurricanes three times in addition to a road rematch with Vegas on March 12.

— Vegas top-line winger Mark Stone left the game with injury in the first period and did not return.

Up next

The Penguins head to Boston for a Tuesday road tilt at 7 p.m. ET. They then return home for three games at PPG Paints Arena on Thursday, Saturday and Sunday.

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