Pittsburgh, PA (My Sportsbook) - Roberto Luongo made 28 saves for his fifth shutout of the season, as the
Florida Panthers routed the Pittsburgh Penguins, 6-0, at the Igloo. Kristian Huselius and Matt Cullen each had a goal and two assists for the Panthers, who won their fourth straight against Pittsburgh.
Niklas Hagman, Ivan Majesky, Olli Jokinen and Marcus Nilson each found the back of the net for Florida, which rebounded from a 6-0 defeat on Wednesday to Toronto. Florida snapped a six-game road winless streak (0-5-1).
Sebastien Caron made 41 saves for the Penguins, who lost their fourth straight contest.
The third period was marred by several scrums, one of which involved Pittsburgh's Mario Lemieux. Lemieux picked up five penalties -- slashing, instigating, fighting, a misconduct and game misconduct -- all during one late third period incident with Florida's Brad Ference. The two players also had a minor confrontation in the second period.
The Panthers used a three-goal first period to take control of the contest. Florida took the early lead as Majesky's shot from the blue line beat Caron glove-side. Cullen won a faceoff and the puck caromed to Huselius, who sent a pass back to the point for Majesky, who rifled the shot into the net.
The Panthers took control of the game with two goals in 11 seconds during the first period. Hagman gave Florida a 2-0 lead at 17:18 of the first period. He took a beautiful cross-ice pass from Ivan Novoseltsev and pushed the puck into the open Pittsburgh net.
Off the ensuing faceoff, a bad pass in the defensive zone by Penguins defenseman Marc Bergevin sent Nilson in on a breakaway. Nilson snapped a shot past Caron and staked the Panthers to a commanding 3-0 lead.
After a scoreless second period, Florida completed the demolition with three third-period tallies. Huselius made it 4-0 at the 5:41 mark of the final period. He picked up the rebound of a Valeri Bure shot and stuffed it past Caron from a tough angle.
Cullen and Jokinen each scored late power-play goals to close out the scoring. For Jokinen it was his team-leading 26th goal of the season.
Luongo picked up his 15th career shutout.
Lemieux received his first fighting major since March 20, 1987.