Penguins Crush Coyotes, NHL Scores

By ESPN

 A year into the job, Pittsburgh Penguins coach Mike Sullivan's daily message to his team has not changed. Just as he did when he took over an underachieving group last December, Sullivan wants the Penguins to "play the right way."

Play smart defensively. Push it up the ice. Don't get caught up trying to make the fancy play. Just take the shot. Lots of them preferably. Repeat as necessary.

At the moment, there may be no team in the NHL doing it as well as the defending Stanley Cup champions.

Sidney Crosby left briefly after taking a stick to the face then returned to pick up his NHL-leading 21st goal and the Penguins crushed the Arizona Coyotes 7-0 on Monday night for their sixth straight victory.

Pittsburgh has outscored the opposition 36-14 during the run, including Crosby's latest highlight reel score when he swatted a puck out of midair to make it 5-0 in the second period.

"I mean when you're winning, it's fun," Crosby said. "I think we've done a good job of limiting other team's chances. When you're doing that, you're creating offense and giving yourself a chance, so I think we've done a good job at that."

Bryan Rust, Scott Wilson, Trevor Daley, Phil Kessel, Nick Bonino and Justin Schultz also scored for the Penguins, and 13 players recorded at least one point. Matt Murray finished with 32 saves while picking up his third career shutout as Pittsburgh pulled into a first-place tie with the New York Rangers atop the crowded Metropolitan Division.

Bruins 2, Canadiens 1

The Boston Bruins and Montreal Canadiens, two longtime rivals, played an old-school contest on Monday night.

After all the heavy hitting, Boston's Ryan Spooner got the final blow.

Spooner scored in overtime and his goal withstood a video review, lifting the Bruins over the Canadiens 2-1.

Spooner got his goal 3:20 into OT on a partial breakaway off a nice give-and-go with Torey Krug. Montreal challenged, claiming Spooner was offside, but the goal stood.

That ended a rough-and-tumble game between franchises that first met in 1924.

"You saw a lot of hitting tonight," Bruins coach Claude Julien said. "A lot of borderline hits, something we hadn't seen between these two teams for a while. The fans seemed to love it.

"We'll try to keep within the rules and continue to make some exciting games between the two teams."

It didn't take long for the bad blood to spill over between the rivals.

Alexei Emelin set the tone for the encounter 13 minutes in with a big shoulder-to-shoulder body check along the boards on David Pastrnak.

Monday, December 12 Scoreboard

Pittsburgh 7, Arizona 0

Boston 2, Montreal 1 (OT)

Tuesday, December 13 Schedule (All Times Central)

Los Angeles at Buffalo, 6 p.m.

Washington at New York Islanders, 6 p.m.

Chicago at New York Rangers, 6 p.m.

Vancouver at Carolina, 6 p.m.

San Jose at Toronto, 6:30 p.m.

Arizona at Detroit, 6:30 p.m.

St. Louis at Nashville, 7 p.m.

Florida at Minnesota, 7 p.m.

Anaheim at Dallas, 7:30 p.m.

Columbus at Edmonton, 8 p.m.