Sidney Crosby had a goal and three assists in his first game back from abdominal surgery and the Pittsburgh Penguins rolled past Minnesota 7-3 on Tuesday night.
Crosby needed less than eight minutes to pick up his first point since before Halloween, assisting on Evgeni Malkin’s first goal of the night 7:57 in. Crosby added his sixth goal of the season in the third period when he slipped a backhand past Devan Dubnyk as the Penguins rolled to their fourth straight victory.
Malkin finished with two goals and a pretty no-look drop pass to set up Bryan Rust’s 19th of the season. Jared McCann scored for the fourth time in five games for Pittsburgh, Dominik Simon added his fifth, and Tristan Jarry stopped 25 shots to improve to 11-0-1 in his last 12 starts against Western Conference opponents.
Crosby skated 17:53 after missing 28 games following abdominal surgery and looked just as dangerous as ever as the Penguins pulled within four points of first-place Washington in the Metropolitan Division.
Zach Parise scored twice and Marcus Foligno added his ninth for the Wild, who spotted the Penguins a four-goal lead. Dubnyk finished with 22 saves, and the Wild fell to 1-5-1 in their last seven games.
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(photo courtesy of Wild.com)