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Fleury, Pens blank Lightning

Nov 30, 2013 - 1:57 AM Tampa, FL (SportsNetwork.com) - Chris Kunitz scored twice and Marc-Andre Fleury stopped 21 shots for his third shutout of the season, as the Pittsburgh Penguins downed the Tampa Bay Lightning, 3-0, on Friday at Tampa Bay Times Forum.

Brandon Sutter added a power-play marker, and Sidney Crosby collected three assists to move his career point total to 701.

"It's fun to see that, but ultimately you play to win games," Crosby said of becoming the fastest active player (497 games) to reach the 700-point plateau. "It's nice we were able to get a win in the same night."

Ben Bishop allowed two goals on 28 shots for the Lightning, who had a seven- game home winning streak halted.

Kunitz opened the scoring just under seven minutes into the tilt when he worked a nice give-and-go with Crosby in the Tampa Bay zone before lighting the lamp from the low left side to make it 1-0 at 6:53.

Following a scoreless second stanza, Sutter padded the Pittsburgh lead 8:27 into the third when his centering feed from behind the Tampa Bay cage deflected off the right skate of Bishop and slid across the goal line to push the lead to 2-0.

Kunitz added an empty-netter at 18:17 to account for the final margin.

"I don't know if the score really reflects how close that game was," Tampa Bay forward Tyler Johnson said. "I thought we played very well. Obviously they're a great team and I thought it was a good hockey game."

Game Notes

Pittsburgh has won eight straight against Tampa Bay and two straight overall ... The Pens improved to 6-6-1 on the road, while the Lightning fell to 10-3-0 at home this season ... Tampa Bay has lost five of seven overall ... Pittsburgh center Evgeni Malkin notched his 25th assist of the season to extend his point streak to seven games.