The Penguins were steam rolling into Vancouver having won the last 7 out of 8 games.
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Pittsburgh remained hot with Friday’s 4-0 win in Toronto, its largest margin of victory this season and second straight game with four goals after failing to hit that point through nine games.
“That happens sometimes”, said Crosby. Heading into Wednesday night’s visit to Vancouver, there’s no longer a need to provide reasons for failure.
Marc-Andre Fleury wasn’t bad on the season-opening skid as the team scored three goals, but he’s been better since with two shutouts, a 1.29 goals-against average and.
Crosby took a deft feed from Kessel and shoveled a backhander past Miller from the front lip of the crease for his second goal of the season.
He denied Bo Horvat from inside the left circle at 47 seconds, then had a Jannik Hansen shot go off his glove and the crossbar little more than a minute into the period.
The Penguins then made it 3-1 just 2:55 later on a short-handed rush when Fehr walked around Canucks defenseman Yannick Weber on a delayed Vancouver penalty before roofing his second of the season.
Just back from injury after signing with Pittsburgh as a free agent in the off-season, Fehr is the first player in National Hockey League history to score short-handed in each of his first two games with a team.
“He’s had a couple chances every game”, centre Evgeni Malkin said.
“I think just making sure that when I do get those chances that I bury them, but there are no guarantees because you’re getting chances that it’s going to go in”, the 28-year-old from Cole Harbour, N.S., said.
“I think in the preseason everybody was telling us how good we were going to be, how many goals we were going to score”, he said. “We didn’t give them a lot”.
They held the lead after an early goal from David Perron on a deflection right in front of Vancouver goalie Ryan Miller. “We’ve been in that position a few times this year and found a way to hold on, which is what you need to do, but we probably need to do a better job of controlling the play a little bit when we have leads like that”.
ABOUT THE CANUCKS (6-2-4): Jared McCann has collected a team-leading five goals in his first 10 games and fellow 19-year-old Jake Virtanen tallied versus the Flyers to continue his strong play the season. Vancouver next plays at Rogers Arena on November 21 against the Chicago Blackhawks…. Canucks F Chris Higgins returned to the lineup after breaking his foot in Vancouver’s first preseason game.
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The Canucks now embark on a seven-game road trip through the Eastern Conference and finally back out west, with featured stops in Ottawa, Toronto, and Montreal before the trip concludes in Winnipeg on November 18.
