Penguins
Penguins Grades: Slump-Shattering Rust & Kapanen Beatdown Blues (+)
The Pittsburgh Penguins followed a string of increasingly solid play with an offensive outburst and dominating win Saturday at PPG Paints Arena. Kasperi Kapanen scored a pair of power-play goals, the second of which completed his hat trick, while Bryan Rust laid waste to a slump that has dogged him for 13 games with a four-point night.
The Penguins nearly boat-raced the St. Louis Blues out of the building in the first period and cruised to a 6-2 win. Things were so good that Sidney Crosby hit the empty net.
Kapanen completed the HT, and Rust had a goal and three assists before the game was 31 minutes old.
St. Louis goalie Jordan Binnington was pulled two minutes into the second period and given a 10-minute “Incitement” misconduct penalty. You can view the whole sequence with Binnington here, including Thomas Greiss stumbling head-first into the St. Louis net.
There were plenty of high grades and some good chalkboard writeups for the Penguins…