The Penguins clinched home-ice advantage for their first-round playoff series against the Blue Jackets with a 7-4 victory over the Devils on Thursday night at the Prudential Center in Newark.
The Penguins got goals from seven players, two assists from Sidney Crosby — including a spectacular no-look, backhand pass to give Conor Sheary a shot into an open net — and 34 saves from Matt Murray in picking up their 50th win of the season.
“Obviously, we’ve had pretty good success at home, and I think any time you can put your team in the best possible situation moving forward, and that’s been our goal, it’s good,” Penguins coach Mike Sullivan said after his team won its 50th game.
The win gave Pittsburgh 111 points — the second-highest total in franchise history. Coupled with Columbus’ 5-4 loss to Winnipeg, the Penguins will finish second ahead of the Blue Jackets in the Metropolitan Division, gaining home-ice for the best-of-7 first-round series.
Bryan Rust, Jake Guentzel, Josh Archibald, Patric Hornqvist, Matt Cullen and Nick Bonino also scored for the Penguins. Bonino also had two assists.
Stefan Noesen, John Moore, Taylor Hall and Kyle Palmieri scored for the Devils.
“They are a high-skilled offensive team, even their depth guys, their roll guys, they can make plays,” said Cory Schneider, who faced 28 shots. “For me as a goalie, if you don’t have your ‘A’ game against this team that’s what can happen to you. We did some good things offensively, scored some goals and put pressure on them, but I didn’t hold up my end of the bargain.”
The Penguins never trailed after Archibald and Sheary scored in a 56-second span early in the second period to put the defending Stanley Cup champions ahead 4-2.
Hall cut the lead to a goal with a power-play goal at 5:34 of the second period, but Hornqvist put in a rebound on a power play a little more than two minutes later to push the advantage back to two goals.
Palmieri capped six-goal second period by putting in a rebound of Travis Zajac’s shot late in the period to cut the lead to 5-4.
However, Cullen scored short-handed early in the third period and Bonino iced the game late with a power-play goal.
Despite being outshot 12-8 in the first period, the Penguins took a 2-1 advantage as Bonino set up goals by Rust and Guentzel in a 2:43 span following New Jersey turnovers.
The Devils had taken the early lead when Pittsburgh defenseman Carter Rowney banked the rebound of Noesen’s shot off Murray into the net.