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Fleury, Pens silence Capitals

Nov 21, 2013 - 6:17 AM Washington, DC (SportsNetwork.com) - Marc-Andre Fleury stopped all 18 shots he faced for his second shutout of the season, and four different Pittsburgh players lit the lamp as the Penguins shut down Washington, 4-0, in the first meeting between these new Metropolitan Division rivals at Verizon Center.

Paul Martin, Beau Bennett, Sidney Crosby and James Neal tallied for the Penguins, the Metro leaders who have won three of four and increased their lead over the Caps to three points.

Evgeni Malkin contributed two assists for the victorious visitors.

Braden Holtby made 36 saves in defeat for the Capitals, whose three-game win streak came to a halt.

"There's lots of ways to lose games, and that's not really one way you want to do it," Washington head coach Adam Oates said of his team being blanked.

Pittsburgh picked up its first goal when Crosby won a right-circle draw back to Martin, whose offering appeared to deflect off Chris Kunitz and hit the net on the short side at 6:38 of the opening period. Nonetheless, Martin was credited with his second of the season.

"Our start was great, we came out hard, really set the tone and got that first [goal], which was important to us," Crosby said.

It was 2-0 for the visitors with 8:03 left in the frame, as Bennett slid between three Caps defenders and beat Holtby on a partially-deflected wrister from the right circle.

Crosby finished off a slick four-person passing play with a rising wrister from the left circle on a man advantage to make it 3-0 with 29 seconds left in the second.

Neal then snaked his way through the Washington zone from right-to-left and beat Holtby to the glove side with a wrister under the crossbar at 7:20 of the third as Pittsburgh enjoyed a four-goal margin.

Game Notes

Fleury, who earned his 25th career shutout, became the first Penguins goaltender to blank the Capitals in Washington since Denis Herron authored a 4-0 decision on Oct. 14, 1983 at Capital Centre ... Pittsburgh and Washington were members of the Patrick Division from 1981-93, with the Pens taking the last game between the teams as division foes on Mar. 28, 1993 (4-1) ... Capitals defenseman Mike Green was scratched with a lower-body injury that has kept him sidelined for the last eight days ... Pittsburgh has won its last five contests vs. Washington and owns an 18-10-4 record over its Wednesday foes since 2005, including a 10-4-2 mark in America's capital over that span.