Matt Murray gets shutout in Penguins victory

VANCOUVER -- Playing for a second straight night on the road and short a forward because of injury, the Pittsburgh Penguins wanted to play a simple game against the Vancouver Canucks.
They ended up dominating instead.
Matt Murray made 27 saves and the Penguins outshot the Canucks 48-27 to win their fifth straight game, 3-0 at Rogers Arena on Saturday.

"It says a lot to how we are playing," Murray said. "It's not easy back to back with travel and changing time zones and all this adversity we are facing, and we came out and played a really good game through it all. That says a lot."
WATCH: All Penguins vs. Canucks highlights
Ian Cole, Jake Guentzel and Conor Sheary scored for the Penguins (43-16-8), who moved two points ahead of the Columbus Blue Jackets for second place in the Metropolitan Division, one point behind the Washington Capitals.
Coming off a 3-2 shootout win against the Edmonton Oilers on Friday, Pittsburgh dressed 11 forwards and seven defensemen after losing forward Carl Hagelin to a lower-body injury that will
keep him out at least four weeks
.
After an even first period, the Penguins outshot Vancouver 23-8 in the second, forcing Ryan Miller to make several great saves before Cole scored the winning goal on a screen shot at 16:24.
"The will our team showed was huge," Cole said.

Coach Mike Sullivan was more impressed with their simplified approach.
"We're playing back to back, we're a little depleted, we have to make sure we play a smart, efficient game," Sullivan said. "Sometimes when you go through these adversities it can galvanize a group."
Miller made 45 saves for the Canucks (28-31-9), who fell 10 points behind the St. Louis Blues for the second wild card into the Stanley Cup Playoffs from the Western Conference.
"I knew they had the explosive kind of offense," Miller said. "I was just trying to be available for cross-ice plays. I felt my patience was a little bit better tonight. It kept me in some of the plays. From there I was just trying to battle."

Sheary made a nice play from behind the net to set up Guentzel at 16:54 of the third period. It was Guentzel's third goal in the past four games.
Sheary, who was robbed a couple times by Miller among his eight shots, scored his 19th of the season into an empty net with 1:15 to play.
"It was nice to not see Miller in the net for a shot," Sheary said. "Because he was stopping everything I was throwing at him."

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Goal of the game

Sheary drove behind the Canucks net from the left side pulling Miller with him, then dropped the puck back to Guentzel beside the right post, leaving just enough room for Guentzel to lift in a high shot from a sharp angle.

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Save of the game

Miller reached back with his glove to rob Sheary on a backdoor one-timer after the Penguins tic-tac-toed the puck around the zone on a delayed penalty at 13:24 of the second period.

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Unsung performance of the game

Penguins defenseman Justin Schultz had three shots on goal, blocked three shots, had two takeaways and a hit in 24:01.

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Highlight of the game

Murray denied Henrik Sedin with a glove save at 3:19 of the third period after Cole made a sliding block of Luca Sbisa's shot from the left circle.

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They said it

"We're fortunate we have a deep organization and guys are going to have an opportunity to have more significant roles, more significant minutes." -- coach Mike Sullivan on the Penguins injuries
"We outshot them pretty heavily so it's just a bit of a challenge sometimes to not overthink things and you are kind of down at the other end by yourself doing nothing." -- Penguins goalie Matt Murray
"You are always going to have to weather something with that team. They do a nice job of creating space for themselves. They move the puck wide in the zone and create that little bit of time to get pucks to the net. They are pretty creative." -- Canucks goalie Ryan Miller

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Need to know

Canucks defensemen Chris Tanev and top-line right wing Markus Granlund were late scratches because of food poisoning. … Murray has four shutouts this season and five in his NHL career.

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What's next

Canucks: Host the Boston Bruins on Monday (10 p.m. ET; SNP, NESN, NHL.TV)
Penguins: At the Calgary Flames on Monday (9 p.m. ET; SNW, ROOT, NHL.TV)