Boston shuts down slumping Penguins

BOSTON — Tim Thomas stopped 27 shots for his second shutout of the season, and Sidney Crosby was held without a point for the fifth straight game as the Boston Bruins beat the Pittsburgh Penguins 3-0 on Tuesday night.

Matt Hunwick backhanded a rebound under the crossbar, then had to wait 77 seconds for a whistle so NHL officials could consult a video replay and give Boston the goal. Mark Recchi had the 900th assist of his career, Daniel Paille had his first goal with the Bruins, and Patrice Bergeron added a short-handed empty-netter with 3.5 seconds left as Boston won back-to-back games for the first time all season.

Thomas recorded his 14th shutout — passing Andy Moog for 10th on the Bruins’ career list — while handing Pittsburgh its second straight shutout.

The Penguins have not scored in 149 minutes, 9 seconds and have lost three straight games — all away from home — after opening the season 7-0 on the road.

It is the longest losing streak of the season for the Penguins, and their longest since Dan Bylsma took over as head coach on Feb. 15 and led them to the Stanley Cup championship. Marc-Andre Fleury made 26 saves.

Pittsburgh, already without Stanley Cup playoffs MVP Evgeni Malkin along with Kris Letang, Sergei Gonchar and Tyler Kennedy, lost former Boston College defenseman Brooks Orpik in the first period to an unspecified injury.

Hunwick scored at 18:24 of the second period, but it took a bit longer for the goal to count.

After he beat Fleury, three Bruins began celebrating and the TD Garden foghorn sounded, but the referee waved off the goal, and play continued until the next whistle with 17:07 left on the clock. Referee Bill McCreary went over to talk to the replay official and soon signaled for the goal to count, giving the Bruins a 1-0 lead and resetting the clock to the time of the goal.

Wild 5, Maple Leafs 2

TORONTO — Mikko Koivu scored one goal and assisted on two others in the second period as the Minnesota Wild ended the Toronto Maple Leafs’ two-game winning streak with a victory.

Marek Zidlicky broke a 1-1 tie at 5:44 of the period. Then, 26 seconds after Koivu beat Jonas Gustavsson at 17:29, Greg Zanon made it 4-1.

Niklas Backstrom made that stand up with 37 saves for the Wild (7-10), who also got goals from Martin Havlat and Owen Nolan into an empty net to win for the fourth time in five games. Minnesota won in Toronto for the first time (1-4) since joining the NHL in 2000-01.

Alexei Ponikarovsky and Phil Kessel scored for the Maple Leafs (3-8-5), who earned points in seven straight games (3-0-4). Toronto failed to build on the momentum of Saturday’s 5-1 win over Detroit.

Flames 1, Canadiens 0

MONTREAL — Miikka Kiprusoff got his first shutout of the season and Jarome Iginla extended his goal-scoring streak to four games, leading the Calgary Flames to a victory over the Montreal Canadiens.

Kiprusoff made 25 saves and improved to 10-3-1 this season as Calgary won its fourth straight to begin a four-game trip. It was his 31st career shutout, his first since Feb. 12, when he turned aside 36 shots in a 2-0 win over Los Angeles.

Named the NHL’s first star of the week one day earlier, Iginla opened the scoring with his team-leading ninth of the season 14:55 in.

Iginla took a return pass from Olli Jokinen and put a shot through traffic past Jaroslav Halak from the top of the right faceoff circle.

Senators 4, Oilers 3

OTTAWA — Jason Spezza scored the winning goal in the shootout for the Ottawa Senators, who twice came from behind to beat the Edmonton Oilers.

Chris Neil scored his third goal of the season with just under 7 minutes left in regulation to give the Senators a 3-2 lead. Just under 2 minutes later, Gilbert Brule tied the game with a hard shot from the slot that trickled past Ottawa goalie Pascal Leclaire.

Jonathan Cheechoo and Nick Foligno also scored for the Senators. Leclaire made 31 saves.

Dustin Penner and Ethan Moreau had first-period goals for the Oilers, and Jeff Drouin-Deslauriers stopped 22 shots.