Fresh off rout, Penguins eager to jolt Panthers again

The Pittsburgh Penguins will look to make it back-to-back victories over the visiting Florida Panthers and sweep the season series on Sunday afternoon.

The Penguins (39-22-16, 94 points) topped the visiting Panthers 9-4 on Saturday night for their third win in the last four games.

With the victory, Pittsburgh resides 10 points back of the first-place Carolina Hurricanes in the Metropolitan Division and five points up on the third-place New York Islanders.

Evgeni Malkin (three goals, one assist) and defenseman Erik Karlsson (one goal, three assists) each recorded four-point performances for the Penguins. Ricard Rakell, Anthony Mantha and Elmer Soderblom each had a goal and an assist.

Noel Acciari and defenseman Ryan Shea also tallied while Arturs Silovs made 19 saves for the win.

Malkin became the 23rd player in NHL history to reach 1,400 points (1,403). He is the third active player to reach the milestone, joining teammate Sidney Crosby (1,756) and Washington Capitals superstar Alex Ovechkin (1,682).

"It's an amazing number, for sure," Malkin said. "For one team, it's huge. I love playing here. ... We have a great team right now. We played hard. Points are important, two points for the team are important because it's huge for us. We're fighting for the playoffs."

Crosby had two assists in the win on Saturday to pass Hall of Famer Steve Yzerman (1,755) for the seventh-most points in NHL history.

"It feels like every couple of games these guys hit another milestone," Penguins coach Dan Muse said. "It's not like these minor milestones. These are big ones; these are some that you never really even get to see. It's incredible."

The Panthers (37-36-3, 76 points), who are officially eliminated from playoff contention, enter Sunday's rematch with the Penguins looking to avoid back-to-back losses and win for just the third time in seven games.

"Obviously, we're playing the exact same team, so clean things up that we need to and get another crack at them tomorrow," Panthers forward Cole Schwindt said.

A.J. Greer collected a goal and an assist and defenseman Seth Jones, Noah Gregor and Mackie Samoskevich also tallied for the Panthers, who are 16-21-0 on the road.

"It was kind of a barrage of goals," Jones said. "We did a good job coming back and making it 2-2 after a slow start, but then you blink, and it's 9-2. We just couldn't stop the bleeding. They did a good around the net."

Sergei Bobrovsky allowed six goals on 19 shots before being replaced by Daniil Tarasov midway through the second. Tarasov stopped nine shots in relief.

"It got away from us," Panthers coach Paul Maurice said. "I mean, just the quickness of the game, for us, was a lot. The puck movement. So, we had touches on almost all of the pucks that ended up in our net. ... We were slower than they were. Credit them, they were fast."

Florida dropped a 5-3 decision in Pittsburgh on Oct. 23.

The Panthers last beat the Penguins 4-3 in a shootout on March 23, 2025. Florida won two of three meetings between the clubs last season.