Toronto: Marc-Andre Fleury recorded his 40th career shut-out, and the Pittsburgh Penguins beat the Toronto Maple Leafs 4-0 Saturday night in Phil Kessel’s return to the Air Canada Centre.
Pittsburgh earned their fourth consecutive win and improved to 7-1-0 since losing its first three games of the season. Toronto kept Kessel, Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin off the scoresheet, but the Penguins stars had plenty of help in adding to the Leafs’ early misery this season.
Chris Kunitz, Eric Fehr, Matt Cullen and Patric Hornqvist scored before a Halloween crowd of 19,197 that included Super Mario and Superman. Many left before the final whistle.
Kessel had 395 points in 446 games for the Leafs. But he was dealt to Pittsburgh in July after president Brendan Shanahan said fans couldn’t understand “people that go out and give half-efforts and that don’t appear to enjoy playing here.”
Kessel was booed whenever he touched the puck, with the volume increasing the longer he had it.
Jonas Gustavsson stopped 21 shots and Brett Connolly’s power-play goal snapped a third-period tie, helping Boston Bruins remain unbeaten on the road.
Connolly scored during a 13-second 5-on-3 opportunity with just over 14 minutes remaining, and the Bruins extended their point streak to seven games (6-0-1) after opening the season with three consecutive losses. They also improved to 5-0-0 on the road in the club’s longest such streak since winning a franchise-best nine straight in March 2014.
Tampa Bay continued to sputter offensively, losing their fourth straight game. The defending Eastern Conference champions led the NHL in scoring a year ago, but have been limited to two goals during their longest skid in two seasons.
