Jesper Fast and Sebastian Aho scored third-period goals Sunday as the visiting Carolina Hurricanes hung on to top the Pittsburgh Penguins 4-3 in a showdown for first place in the Metropolitan Division.
Both teams entered the game with 70 points.
Jesperi Kotkaniemi and Jordan Staal also scored for the Hurricanes, who won their second straight and are 7-2-2 in their past 11.
Carolina goaltender Antti Raanta made 31 saves.
Bryan Rust had a goal and an assist, Sidney Crosby and Evan Rodrigues also scored, and Evgeni Malkin and Kris Letang each had two assists for the Penguins, who lost their second straight.
Pittsburgh goaltender Tristan Jarry made 26 saves.
Carolina played most of the game with just five defensemen. Brendan Smith left early in the first after he got hit up high with a shot by the Penguins’ Danton Heinen.
The only goal of the first came from Kotkaniemi at 15:18. Seth Jarvis carried the puck behind the Penguins net and fed Jordan Martinook in the slot. He had got ridden off the puck, but Kotkaniemi pounced on it and lifted a shot past Jarry.
Staal made it 2-0 just 9 seconds into the second on a fluky play. Pittsburgh’s Jeff Carter’s attempt to clear the puck out of the slot ricocheted off Staal’s leg and under Jarry’s pads.
At 14:43 of the second, Rust cut it to 2-1. Kris Letang’s shot from the left point hit a Hurricanes player’s stick, went off Raanta’s pads and to Rust, who knocked it in.
Crosby tied it 3:16 later. He got the puck at the left point, moved up to the near dot and scored far side on a slap shot.
In the third and for the second period in a row, Carolina scored 9 seconds in. Fast, from the inner edge of the right circle, converted on a cross-zone feed from Nino Niederreiter for a 3-2 lead.
Aho’s power-play goal made it 4-2 at 14:18 of the third, on a spinning one-timer from the left hash marks.
Rodrigues pulled the Penguins to within 4-3 with 1:12 left on a too-little, too-late power-play goal.
–Field Level Media
