Kris Letang had a goal and two assists to lead the Pittsburgh Penguins to a 7-2 road win over the Detroit Red Wings on Saturday.

Evgeni Malkin scored two goals, Sidney Crosby and Rickard Rakell each had a goal and an assist for Pittsburgh (45-23-11, 101 points).

Jakub Vrana and Michael Rasmussen scored in defeat for Detroit (30-39-10, 70 points).

Pittsburgh opened the scoring with 6:16 remaining in the first on a goal by Chad Ruhwedel, who skated toward the Detroit goal, took a pass from Teddy Blueger in front of the crease and buried the chance to make it 1-0.

The Penguins then made it 2-0 with 4:42 left in the second when Crosby took a cross-ice pass from Rakell and shot the puck into the half-open net.

Detroit answered 1:18 later on a power play, cutting its deficit to 2-1 when Vrana took a pass from Tyler Bertuzzi and fired the puck into the net from the right faceoff circle.

The Red Wings tied the game at 2-2 just 17 seconds into the second period when Rasmussen skated in on a 2-on-1 and beat Pittsburgh goalie Casey DeSmith to the glove side. DeSmith finished with 23 saves and two goals surrendered.

But Pittsburgh took over after that, scoring five straight goals.

Rakell made it 3-2 with 12:16 left in the second when he skated in front of the Detroit goal from the left side and beat Detroit goalie Thomas Greiss above the glove.

Greiss was eventually replaced after saving 18 of 23 shots in 40 minutes. Replacement Alex Nedeljkovic gave up two goals with 13 saves.

Letang then gave Pittsburgh a 4-2 lead with 8:23 remaining in the second when he shot a puck from the left faceoff circle that fluttered underneath the crossbar and into the net.

With 3:37 remaining in the second, Pittsburgh took a 5-2 lead on a power-play goal by Malkin, who buried a loose puck that was laying in the crease into the goal.

Pittsburgh then went ahead 6-2 with 14:22 remaining in the game on a goal by Danton Heinen.

Malkin added his second of the game with 25.5 seconds remaining to round out the scoring.

--Field Level Media