Penguins' top line sparks win against Flyers

The way Pittsburgh Penguins coach Mike Sullivan sees it, things don’t need to be complicated for his team to have success.

Quite the opposite. Literally.

“There’s an element of simplicity associated with our game that gives us a chance to be successful and makes us hard to play against,” Sullivan said via video conference.

It might be a little too simple to suggest the Penguins played, well, simple Tuesday against the rival Philadelphia Flyers at Wells Fargo Center.

But however you want to label it, it produced the desired effect as they claimed an important 7-3 win in their final road contest of the regular season.

Shaking off the aftereffects of their dreadful 7-2 loss Monday in the same venue, the Penguins secured a win that pushed them back into first place of the East Division with 73 points, two more than the Capitals.

The Penguins have two games remaining on their schedule, whereas the idle Capitals still have four games to play.

During Monday’s game, the Penguins’ top line of Jake Guentzel, Sidney Crosby and Bryan Rust largely struggled to maintain the puck.

On Tuesday, they led the way as all three players recorded at least a point as the Penguins matched a season high for goals.

“We weren’t happy with (Monday) night for sure,” forward Jake Guentzel said. “Our whole team, we know we needed to be better. Particularly, our line, we needed to be better. Tonight, from the start, we were good, and we controlled the puck, and we had (offensive) zone time. Just from our standpoint, I thought we were much better (Tuesday) than (Monday) night.”

The Penguins scored the game’s first three goals. After defenseman Marcus Pettersson collected his second goal of the season 1:44 into the game, Guentzel scored his 23rd on a power-play chance 3:10 into the second.

Crosby scored his 22nd at 5:44 of the second.

The Flyers responded at 8:21 of the middle frame when defenseman Justin Braun scored his first goal of the season. That was followed up by forward Sean Couturier getting his 16th late in the period at the 18:40 mark.

Penguins forward Jason Zucker had his ninth goal of the season and second in as many games at 7:49 of the third, but the Flyers persisted as forward Travis Konecny collected his 11th at the 10:23 mark.

Insurance goals by Crosby (at 12:33), defenseman Mark Friedman (on an empty net at 15:53) and defenseman John Marino (on a power play) secured victory in a contest that took on a particularly nasty tone, even by the bellicose standards of this heated rivalry.

Early in the second period, Friedman, who the Penguins claimed off waivers from Flyers in February, slammed Flyers forward Joel Farabee to the ice with a hit. Farabee responded by dropping the gloves with his former teammate.

Then, just prior to Crosby’s goal, a slewfoot by Konency caused Rust to miss most of the second period before he ultimately returned for the final period.

Following that malfeasance, Crosby and Konency got into a wrestling match later in the period, presumably in connection to Konecny dropping Rust.

Late in regulation, just after Friedman scored, Flyers defenseman Shayne Gostisbehere cross-checked the Penguins defenseman into the end boards, causing him to crash awkwardly. Friedman appeared to escape injury.

“Just plays you don’t really want to see out there,” Guentzel said. “You just don’t want to see stuff like that in the game. We got the job done in getting the two points. That’s what we came here to do tonight. A bounce back from (Monday). We did the job on the scoreboard.”

Penguins goaltender Tristan Jarry got the job done in net by making 30 saves on 33 shots as his team rebounded from one of its worst contests of the season.

“I don’t think anybody was happy with it,” Crosby said. “It was a response game, I think, for all of us.”