BUFFALO, N.Y. — The Penguins arrived here with three unspoken objectives — don’t get hurt, don’t let up and don’t you dare leave town without all four points.
Check, check and check.
Saturday, at an empty KeyBank Center, the Penguins handed the last-place Sabres their 10th straight loss, beating them, 3-0. Casey DeSmith recorded his first shutout in two years and Jake Guentzel got the lone goal with a goalie in the net.
During their brief stay in Buffalo, they tacked two more onto their winning streak, which now sits at a season-high five games. The Penguins outscored their gracious hosts, 8-2, in the process. They are now as close to first place in the East Division as they are to fifth, with the Philadelphia Flyers dropping another Saturday.
“We’ve been playing the hockey we want,” said Guentzel, who took over the team lead in goals with one in each game here. “It’s been a full 60 minutes and we’ve been playing simple, just getting pucks in and not playing too high-risk.”
With the Penguins this week set to reach the midway point of this shortened season, and with Saturday’s game being largely uneventful, now seems like as good a time as any to take stock of where these Stanley Cup hopefuls stand.
When the season began two months ago, there were more skeptics than usual questioning whether this was a playoff team. To be fair, the Penguins early on didn’t provide enough evidence to emphatically prove them wrong.
While they still aren’t firing on all cylinders, they have punched it into another gear, winning six of seven while outscoring their opponents by 15 total goals.
“We’re definitely trending in the right direction,” Brian Dumoulin said.
Their goaltending has stabilized, with Tristan Jarry posting some of the NHL’s best numbers since Valentine’s Day and DeSmith making the most of his sporadic starts. The latter stopped 24 shots Saturday in just his third start since Feb. 11.
After a bunch of early-season injuries tested their depth on the blue line, they are mostly at full strength, other than a seemingly minor injury that kept John Marino out of the lineup in Buffalo. And the Penguins overall have fared better in the last few games at cutting down the number of shots allowed from the slot.
Kasperi Kapanen has helped to ignite Evgeni Malkin. Neither of those two linemates lit the lamp Saturday but over the last 11 games they have nine combined goals, finally giving the Penguins a third forward line they can feel good about.
And their team speed has been much more apparent in recent weeks, with shorter, crisper passes and collective play giving their forwards a chance to fly.
“We’ve put some wins together here, which is great for the players, great for us,” coach Mike Sullivan said. “I think it starts with their consistent compete [level], their consistent intensity and we’re getting contributions throughout our lineup, from our goaltender on out. I think that’s what it takes to win in this league.”
To become true Stanley Cup contenders, the Penguins must continue to elevate their game. Their special teams remain a work in progress. Their fourth line needs to bring more energy and a little offense like they did in Thursday’s win. And some of those skeptics still wonder if they are physical enough to last all four rounds.
Plus, they’ll probably need Sidney Crosby to be great instead of merely good.
On Saturday, though, they had to just make sure they didn’t beat themselves.
The Sabres, who had lost nine games in a row and 14 of 16 entering Saturday, were without All-Star Jack Eichel and recent top-10 pick Dylan Cozens, the latter of whom was hurt by a tough hit by Zach Aston-Reese on Thursday. That meant that former Penguins castoff Riley Sheahan had to line up as their first-line center.
To their credit, the Sabres managed to muck things up for much of the night.
The Penguins didn’t score the first goal of the game until there was 3:23 left in the second period. Until that point, both teams had cluttered the middle of the rink while taking few chances offensively. When the Penguins did get good looks, Carter Hutton stood tall, as he has typically done against them during his career.
They finally got a puck past him while on the power play. From his usual spot on the right wall, Malkin whizzed a pass-through to Guentzel on the doorstep. Hutton made the first save but Guentzel batted the rebound back behind him.
“He’s got a knack for finding the back of the net,” Sullivan said. “He’s a goal-scorer. There’s no other way to describe his game. He can be opportunistic.”
Malkin, meanwhile, extended his point streak to seven games with the assist.
The Penguins withstood a late Sabres push and Crosby and Mark Jankowski scored empty-netters during the final minute to leave Buffalo with four points.
They must continue to take advantage of a favorable second-half schedule that has six more games against Buffalo, eight versus New Jersey and another two against a New York Rangers team that the Penguins have beaten five of six times.
First things first, though, are back-to-back matchups against the Boston Bruins. The Penguins are set to host them Monday and Tuesday at PPG Paints Arena.
