Devils sweep season series, beat Penguins 5-2

New Jersey 5 – Pittsburgh 2

The New Jersey Devils continued their dominance against the Pittsburgh Penguins as Patrik Elias scored a shorthanded breakaway goal and set up another for the Devils, who beat the Pittsburgh Penguins 5-2 Wednesday night to complete a six-game season sweep of their Atlantic Division rivals.

The win moved New Jersey into first place in the Atlantic division. Both teams are tied with 87 points, but the Devils have one game in hand and own the head-to-head tiebreaker, posting a 6-0 record against Pittsburgh.

Pittsburgh had a number of costly turnovers and got poor goaltending from Marc Andre Fleury who was pulled in the second period after making 9 saves on 13 shots. However, the Penguins didn’t give Fleury any help. Fleury has allowed 18 goals in five games against New Jersey this season.

For second straight game against Pittsburgh in less than a week, Devils fans chanted “You can’t beat us” in the final seconds of the game as the Penguins continue to have no answers for the Devils who outscored the defending champs 22-5 in the season series.

The Devils had a balanced scoring attack as Dainius Zubrus (7), Paul Martin (1), Patrik Elias (13) (Shorthanded), Zach Parise (33) and Rob Niedermayer (10) (Empty Net) all scored for New Jersey.

Pittsburgh opened the scoring 4:11 into the game on a goal from Chris Kunitz but Pittsburgh was unable to take advantage of getting the first goal as New Jersey responded with four unanswered goals, including a shorthanded tally from Patrik Elias.

Pittsburgh struggled once again on the power play going 0-for-3 on the night and were a combined 0-for-21 against New Jersey in six games.

The Pittsburgh Penguins were without the services of star center Evgeni Malkin who missed tonight’s game with a foot injury.

Pittsburgh is 5-2-1 since the Olympic break and have lost three of four games during a current five game road trip.

Pittsburgh ends their five game road trip Thursday night against the Boston Bruins.