The Penguins made a habit of third-period collapses early in the season. They'd go into the final frame with a lead, sit back and get passive, and squander all that early work away. 

They've gotten better about that as of late, and those third-period collapses aren't as commonplace. But if there's any game that stands as an example of the Penguins learning how to play in the third period, it's Thursday's 9-2 win over the Canadiens at the Bell Centre.

The Penguins had a narrow lead after 20 minutes. After Nick Suzuki scored on the Canadiens' first shot of the game, the Penguins quickly responded with a power-play goal from Rickard Rakell and a pair of second-period goals from Bryan Rust, but Joel Armia brought the Canadiens back within a goal before second intermission.

To that point, the game was fairly evenly-matched. The third period was anything but that. Rakell netted his second goal of the game, parking himself in the slot and redirecting a Rust pass. Letang made it 5-2 shortly after with a power-play goal, and then Anthony Beauvillier drove to the net and knocked in a puck to extend the Penguins' lead to four goals. Rust completed he hat trick with a snapshot from the left circle, Matt Nieto deflected a Matt Grzelcyk pass for his first goal of the year, and then Noel Acciari scored the Penguins' ninth goal with just 1:18 remaining. The Penguins peppered Sam Montembeault and Cayden Primeau after Montembeault was pulled with 14 shots in the third, while holding the Canadiens to just six shots in the frame.

"I think we were on our toes," Rust said of that third period. "Even though we still had the lead, we weren't sitting back. We just kind of went at them, and we were able to get that fourth one. And then our PP had a huge goal, which I think kind of hurt them a lot, and then we just took off."

That power-play goal Rust referenced was the Penguins' fifth, the Letang tally set up by Michael Bunting:

Mike Sullivan, too, cited that fifth goal as the real backbreaker.

"I said this to the guys after the game," Sullivan said. "That fifth goal we got on a power play in the third period, for me was a really important goal for us. We talk about power play statistics and things of that nature. But for me, one of the biggest attributes of a good power play is the timing of when they score goals. That was an example."

There was a lot to like about this win. The power play went 2-for-3 against a penalty-kill that entered this game tied as the sixth-best in the league. The top line of Rakell, Crosby and Rust combined for 11 points. The Penguins got a pair of goals from their fourth line. Tristan Jarry, though he allowed a goal on his first shot faced for the fifth time in just 12 starts, settled in and didn't spiral after the early deficit, and made some key, big saves when the game was still close. 

The Penguins have six wins in their last eight games and are two points back of a playoff spot. They've shown in that stretch that they're still capable of some real stinkers. But as a whole, they're largely trending in the right direction after a pretty horrendous start to the year.

"We're just giving ourselves a chance," Crosby said. "You know, we're not beating ourselves. ... We've just got to continue to try to get better and do the right things, similar to what we've been doing here the last chunk of time."

From HockeyStatCards ... that's a lot of net positives. Obviously there's a lot of offense in a 9-2 win, but just about everyone had positive defensive results too:

Matt Nieto had to wait longer than he would have liked between his first two goals as a Penguin -- 405 days, to be exact. 

It's been a long road. After a goal and three assists in his first 22 games as a Penguin last season, Nieto was sidelined by a knee injury and required surgery, then injured his other knee while rehabbing the first one, and required an additional surgery. After missing the start of the season and then having a couple games as a healthy scratch as of late, Nieto re-entered the lineup on Thursday and redirected a Matt Grzelcyk pass for the Penguins' eighth goal in a 9-2 win:

It might not have been a big goal in the context of the game, but it was a big goal personally for Nieto, who told me it was "a great feeling, for sure. It's been a while, and it was just a great play on the goal. (Blake Lizotte) makes great play to Grz, and Grz finds me crashing the net and I was able to put it away. But just a great team effort all around tonight."

Mike Sullivan said he was "pumped" for Nieto after everything he's dealt with the last two seasons.

"He's been through so much just to get back to playing condition," Sullivan said. "You think about it, he goes through two surgeries, an extended return-to-play process just to get himself back into playing shape and in the lineup. When a guy like him has an opportunity to score a goal, I think it gives the group a big boost, because they know how hard he works, and they know the type of person that he is and and what he brings to the team."

Tristan Jarry hasn't been great to start games this season, there's no denying that. In his 12 starts, he's only opened a game with at least five consecutive saves without allowing a goal two times. He's allowed a goal on the first shot faced five times, with Thursday night at the Bell Centre being one of those times:

While early goals like that one have led to Jarry spiraling in the past, he didn't tonight. He only faced 22 more shots after that, and he stopped 21 of them. 

Jarry said his mindset after the early goal was to "just keep going."

"I don't think there's much more you can do," Jarry said of having that mindset. "They got a lucky break, just in transition, they were able to get behind our guys, it obviously happens. I think we were just on the wrong side of the puck there, but we just have to keep going. And I think when that first one goes in, you have to obviously battle a little harder. And the guys, I thought, had a great response, and we were able to get one back pretty quick."

Feels like every other game, someone is hitting a big milestone this season. Tonight's milestone: Sidney Crosby's three assists gave him 1,026 career assists, surpassing Gordie Howe's 1,023 with the Red Wings for the fifth-most with a single team in NHL history. Next up? Mario Lemieux, with 1,033. That one will obviously give Crosby the new franchise lead, too.

• Crosby is now within 100 points of the franchise lead in points. Lemieux leads with 1,723, and Crosby is now at 1,626.

• Bryan Rust recorded at least six shots in a game for the third time this season.

• Rust's hat trick was the sixth of his career, the most of any player since Rust came into the league in 2014-15. Rust surpassed Jake Guentzel's five career hat tricks in Pittsburgh and is now tied with Mike Bullard for the ninth-most hat tricks in franchise history. Next up: Rob Brown, with seven. Lemieux leads with 40, and Crosby and Evgeni Malkin are tied for second with 13 each.

• Crazy things happened when Erik Karlsson and Marcus Pettersson were on the ice together at five-on-five: The Penguins controlled 86.21% of shot attempts (25-4), 85% of unblocked attempts (17-3) and 88.89% of shots on goal (16-2). Three of the Penguins' nine goals came with the second defense pairing on the ice.