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Penguins shut down Wild with Greiss in net

Nov 5, 2014 - 5:46 AM St. Paul, MN (SportsNetwork.com) - Thomas Greiss made 33 saves and the Pittsburgh Penguins continued their superb defensive play with a 4-1 victory over the Minnesota Wild on Tuesday.

Pittsburgh, which was coming off back-to-back shutouts of the Kings and Sabres courtesy of starter Marc-Andre Fleury, had success with their backup between the pipes.

The team's shutout streak ran to 205:28 before Greiss allowed a goal midway through the third period.

"We kept a lot of stuff to the outside. It made my life easier," Greiss said. "I think our defense did a really good job clearing rebounds."

Nick Spaling, Brandon Sutter, Chris Kunitz and Patric Hornqvist all scored for the Penguins, who won their fifth straight game.

Nino Niederreiter supplied Minnesota's lone goal and Darcy Kuemper allowed three goals on 21 shots in the Wild's first home loss.

"I think we know that it wasn't good enough, and now we turn our sights towards the next one," Wild head coach Mike Yeo said.

Spaling opened the scoring with 54 seconds remaining in the first period. Steve Downie stole the puck off a defender and slid a pass to Spaling, who finished off the sequence with a wrist shot from the left side of the net.

Sutter and Spaling entered the zone on a 2-on-1 and Sutter snapped a shot past Kuemper to extend Pittsburgh's lead 2:08 into the second.

Evgeni Malkin unleashed a shot from the left circle and Kunitz tipped it in for a power-play goal with 4:27 left in the second.

Niederreiter disrupted Pittsburgh's shutout streak by beating Greiss with a backhander off a short-handed breakaway 10:48 into the final stanza.

Minnesota had a goal waved off with 3:06 remaining. Zach Parise's shot appeared to cross the goal line before Marcel Goc batted the puck with his glove, but the officiating crew deemed that it was not a reviewable play due to goaltender interference.

Hornqvist sealed the win on an empty-net goal.

Game Notes

The Penguins scored 18 unanswered goals in their shutout streak ... Malkin extended his point streak to 11 games ... Pittsburgh defenseman Olli Maatta underwent successful surgery Tuesday to remove a tumor in his thyroid gland and is expected to return to the lineup within the next four weeks ... Minnesota has outshot its opponent in every game this season, totaling a 384-251 advantage ... Kunitz has five goals and two assists in his past three games.