Penguins on cruise mode with ninth straight win

Pittsburgh: Sidney Crosby scored his 13th goal, Tomas Vokoun stopped 31 shots, and the Pittsburgh Penguins beat the Boston Bruins 2-1 on Sunday for their ninth straight win.

Joe Vitale added his first goal in more than a year for the Penguins, who have beaten the Bruins five consecutive times.

Tyler Seguin scored his 10th goal for Boston, and Tuukka Rask made 16 saves but couldn’t stop the Bruins from losing to Pittsburgh for the second time in less than a week.

The Penguins scored three times in the final seven minutes on Tuesday to steal a 3-2 victory. There were no dramatics necessary this time, as hockey’s hottest team never trailed to remain unbeaten in March. Pittsburgh, which moved into first place in the Eastern Conference — two points ahead of Montreal — has allowed just five goals in five games.

In Ottawa, Jakob Silfverberg scored twice to lead Ottawa over Winnipeg. Guillaume Latendresse and Kyle Turris added goals for the Senators, who got 25 saves from Robin Lehner. Zach Bogosian scored the lone goal for the Jets. Ondrej Pavelec made 38 saves, but Winnipeg’s three-game winning streak was snapped.

Trailing 2-0 heading into the third, the Jets finally beat Lehner at 3:26 as Bogosian’s shot from just inside the blue line made it through traffic and just under the crossbar. Evander Kane had a great chance to tie the game midway through the period on a 2-on-1 break, but was robbed by Lehner, who made a great pad save.

Troy Brouwer had a goal and an assist in the second period of Washington’s victory over Buffalo. Jason Chimera added his first regular-season goal in nearly a year for the Capitals (12-15-1), who broke out of an offensive slump in which they had scored only seven times in five games — losing four.

Alex Ovechkin got the Capitals going with his 350th NHL goal, scored only 19 seconds in, and Marcus Johansson and Matthieu Perrault also had a goal and an assist each as Washington beat Buffalo at home for the seventh time in eight games.