PITTSBURGH (AP) — Bryan Rust has no explanation for his career-best scoring run. He just wants to keep playing the same way.Rust scored two more goals to help the Pittsburgh Penguins beat the Minnesota Wild 2-1 on Thursday night.“Sometimes that’s how hockey goes Adidas Petr Mrazek Jersey ,” Rust said. “It just wants to make me shoot the puck more, I guess.”Rust has at least one goal in five of his last six games, including the game-winner in Wednesday night’s 2-1 victory over the defending Stanley Cup champion Washington Capitals on the road.He has eight goals and nine points in his last six games after collecting one goal and seven points in his first 29 games.“It’s going in for him and we’re thrilled for him,” Penguins coach Mike Sullivan said. “I think he’s confident now and I think he has a little bit of pressure off of him. It’s not like he wasn’t getting scoring chances in the first part of the season. He was. The puck just didn’t seem to go in the net for him and now it is.”Rust put Pittsburgh ahead to stay when he scored his ninth of the season 8:12 into the third period.Pittsburgh’s Jake Guentzel picked off a Greg Pateryn pass behind the net, and centered to the slot where Rust slipped a shot between Devan Dubnyk’s pads.Pittsburgh has won four of five games and seven of 10 overall. The Penguins have earned points in eight of their last 10 games and 13 of the last 17 following a difficult November run in which they won just one of 10 games.“It’s nice to string a few wins in a row against some pretty good teams,” Sullivan said. “Every point we get in the standings is important and we’re slowly but surely climbing. We’re becoming harder to play against.”Casey DeSmith stopped 40 shots for his eighth win in 12 home starts. DeSmith has started nine of the last 11 games for Pittsburgh.Jordan Greenway scored his sixth for the Wild, who have dropped three straight and five of seven. Dubnyk made 35 saves.“It’s disappointing,” Dubnyk said. “We were in a really good spot going into the third period Adidas Calvin De Haan Jersey , and playing good hockey. So you want to find a way to win those games.”Greenway opened the scoring 7:13 into the first when he converted a wrist shot from inside the left circle. But Rust answered for Pittsburgh, extending his goal streak to a career-best four games.Dubnyk left his crease, but misplayed a puck behind the net to Guentzel, who quickly centered to Rust for the goal into an empty net.“The first one, it doesn’t get much easier than that, and the second one, I came screaming down the middle and (Guentzel) found me,” Rust said.NOTES: Dominik Simon returned to the Penguins’ lineup after missing eight games with a lower-body injury. Garrett Wilson was sent to the team’s minor league affiliate in Wilkes-Barre/Scranton. … Wild D Matt Dumba missed his second straight game with an upper-body injury. … Penguins D Jamie Oleksiak was sidelined by a concussion. … Pateryn played in his 200th career game.UP NEXTWild: Host Dallas on Saturday.Penguins: Visit Carolina on Saturday. DENVER (AP) Colorado had speed and youth. Nashville brought experience and know-how.It was plain to see which won out – this time.Mattias Ekholm ignited the offense early with the first goal by a Nashville defenseman in the series Adidas Michael Ferland Jersey , Pekka Rinne stopped 22 shots and the top-seeded Predators advanced to the second round with a 5-0 victory over the Avalanche in Game 6 on Sunday night.Austin Watson , Filip Forsberg , Nick Bonino and Viktor Arvidsson also scored to help the Predators move on to face Winnipeg. They were 3-1-1 against the Jets in the regular season.”I’m very impressed the way (the Avalanche) played. They played very modern hockey, with a lot of speed,” said Rinne, who notched his fourth career postseason shutout as the Predators won the series 4-2. ”Great game. Great team effort. We didn’t give them any life.”Nashville removed any sort of drama with two goals in the opening period and two more in the second to hush the capacity crowd. That’s the sort of game plan the Predators envisioned.”I think that was our best game from start to finish,” Watson said. ”That’s good for us going forward, to be able to take the last game of this series and carry that into how we want to play in the next one.”Andrew Hammond ran out of magic in net Adidas Jordan Schroeder Jersey , allowing five goals. The third-string goaltender nicknamed ”Hamburglar” had 44 saves during a Game 5 win in Nashville to extend the series. But he couldn’t turn back a formidable Nashville offense that won a second straight playoff contest in Denver. Before this, the Avalanche hadn’t lost two straight at the Pepsi Center since early December.”It’s disappointing to us and I’m sure it’s disappointing to fans,” Avalanche captain Gabriel Landeskog said. ”It means a lot to us that they did give us a standing ovation at the end.”Watson tormented Colorado with four goals and seven points in the series. In all, 11 of Nashville’s forwards had at least a point over six games.The one thing missing was contributions from a blue line that tied a franchise record for goals during the regular season. The Predators `D’ was held scoreless until Ekholm’s slap shot at 7:20.Forsberg scored 38 seconds into second to give Nashville a 3-0 lead and completely drain the energy out of the arena. Bonino added another to go with his two assists.The closest Colorado came to scoring on Rinne was in the second period, when Nikita Zadorov sent in a shot, but it was waved off due to goaltender interference on Carl Soderberg.”Every line that went out there took a lot of pride in playing good defense, even at the end with the game 5-0. We still protected the net,” Rinne said. ”Guys wanted to get me that shutout.”It was quite a bounce-back season for Colorado Adidas Chris Kunitz Jersey , which boasts one of the youngest teams in the league. The Avalanche went from a 48-point team in 2016-17 to 95 points this season, earning the last playoff spot on the final day of the regular season. The Avs are the first NHL team to post that sort of turnaround from one full season to the next since Pittsburgh also jumped 47 points in 2005-06 (58) to `06-07 (105).”There are a lot of positives for sure,” said Nathan MacKinnon, who was held to one shot Sunday. ”Everybody thought we weren’t going to make it, that we were going to be the odd-team-out in the West. Obviously, it’s nice to prove some people wrong and have a good young team going forward.”In the handshake line after the game, Nashville coach Peter Laviolette had some encouraging words for MacKinnon.”He thought our team was up-and-coming, similar to their team Adidas Brandon Manning Jersey ,” MacKinnon recounted. ”Definitely, it’s a good team to be compared to.”Colorado ran into a Predators squad that looked every bit like the team that went to the Stanley Cup Final a season ago and won the Presidents’ Trophy this season. They’re clicking on all cylinders heading into the Winnipeg series.”These guys have been flying around for six games, playing really fast hockey,” Forsberg said. ”We’ve been trying to play as fast as we can as well. If we can bring that speed into the next round that will be good.”NOTES: The Predators improved to 6-6 all-time in a Game 6 situation. … F Colton Sissons had two assists. … RW Ryan Hartman was a scratch after being suspended for Game 5 for a hit on Soderberg. … D P.K. Subban had high praise for MacKinnon: ”My expectations for him as a player is to be a Hall of Famer by the end of his career.”—