Penguins jump on Kings early, roll to 6-1 victory

By WILL GRAVES
AP Sports Writer

PITTSBURGH (AP) — Tristan Jarry stopped 39 shots, Jeff Petry and Jan Rutta scored their first goals of the season and the Pittsburgh Penguins drilled the Los Angeles Kings 6-1 on Thursday night.

Petry and Rutta, brought in by the Penguins during the offseason to give their blue line a little more heft, scored on long shots from the point. Rickard Rakell and Jake Guentzel found the net from in close as the Penguins made Mike Sullivan the first coach to reach 300 victories with the club.

Jeff Carter also scored against his old team and Ryan Poehling added his first career goal in the third period as Pittsburgh improved to 3-0-1.

Cal Petersen stopped just six of the nine shots he faced in the first period before being pulled at the start of the second. Jonathan Quick made 22 saves over the final two periods but Los Angeles saw its three-game winning streak snapped. Carl Grundstrom’s power-play goal with 2:12 remaining spoiled Jarry’s bid for his 12th career shutout.

The Penguins are off to a quick start thanks to some early dominance at PPG Paints Arena. Pittsburgh has outscored opponents 18-5 at home through three games but begins a stretch of 13 of 17 games on the road starting Saturday night in Columbus.

Two nights after letting a 2-0 lead get away in an overtime loss in Montreal, Pittsburgh wasted little time taking it to the road-weary Kings.

Rutta gave the Penguins the lead 4:04 into the first with an innocent flip from the point that made its way through traffic before slipping by Petersen. The goal was just the 13th of Rutta’s 242-game career.

Jarry withstood a flurry from the Kings, and Guentzel picked up his third goal of the season at the end of a sequence in which Petersen chased Penguins defenseman Kris Letang behind the net. Letang flicked the puck to the mouth of the goal and Guentzel jammed it in while standing in the blue paint.

Rakell’s followed a little less than four minutes later by skating behind Petersen through the paint to backhand home a rebound off a Petry shot from the point.

That was all for Petersen and while Quick steadied things when he entered, this time there would be no comeback like the one Los Angeles put together during an overtime victory in Nashville on Tuesday.

The Kings kept Jarry busy but the two-time All-Star, who missed all but one of Pittsburgh’s playoff games last season due to a foot injury, kept Los Angeles at bay while the Penguins poured it on.

Petry bounced back from a tough night in Montreal — where he spent eight seasons before being traded to Pittsburgh over the summer — by drilling home a slap shot from the point 4:13 into the second and the rout was on.

UP NEXT

Kings: Finish up an early season five-game East Coast swing on Saturday in Washington.

Penguins: Will try to continue their recent mastery of Columbus on Saturday. Pittsburgh won all four meetings with the Metropolitan Division rival last season.

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