PITTSBURGH — Connor Clifton and Egor Chinakhov scored 50 seconds apart in the third period and the Pittsburgh Penguins surged past Jack Hughes and the reeling New Jersey Devils 4-1 on Thursday night.

Tommy Novak, serving as the first-line center while captain Sidney Crosby recovers from a lower-body injury sustained at the Milan Cortina Olympics, picked up his 12th goal of the season. Blake Lizotte added an empty-netter late for Pittsburgh, which has won eight of 10 to move into second place in the crowded Metropolitan Division.

Arturs Silovs stopped 28 shots to win for the fourth time in five starts.

Paul Cotter scored his sixth goal of the season for the Devils but couldn’t halt New Jersey’s slide. The Devils have dropped seven of eight to fall off the pace in the race for one of the Eastern Conference’s two wild-card spots.

Hughes, who carved out a piece of U.S. Olympic history when he scored the winning goal in the gold medal game against Canada, received an extended ovation on the road — replete with chants of “Huuuughes” and “USA! USA!” — during a brief pregame ceremony in which the Penguins acknowledged the gold-medal winning U.S. men’s and women’s teams, as well as members of Team Canada.

The Penguins have pledged to stay in the playoff mix without Crosby. They began a busy stretch without him by using solid goaltending from Silovs and timely playmaking to keep it going.

Clifton’s blast past Jacob Markstrom 6:30 into the third period gave Pittsburgh a 2-1 lead. Chinakhov doubled the Penguins’ advantage less than a minute later when he collected a stretch pass from Evgeni Malkin then slipped the puck between Markstrom’s legs for his ninth goal in 19 games since being acquired from Columbus in December.

Up next

Devils: At St. Louis on Saturday.

Penguins: At the New York Rangers on Saturday.