The Nailers' 4-1 win over the Royals in Reading, Pa. on Friday was their 12th consecutive win and 15th consecutive game without a loss in regulation, setting a new franchise record for games in which at least one point in the standings was earned.

The Royals scored 1:41 into the game on just their fourth shot. Jagger Joshua tied the game midway through the first, and Matty De St. Phalle scored a pair of goals to make it a 3-1 game before first intermission. Kyle Jackson extended the lead in the second period, and both teams played a scoreless third.

Taylor Gauthier earned the win with 28 saves on 29 shots. He is 3-0 to start the season after returning from injury with an 0.67 goals-against average and a .965 save percentage.

De St. Phalle, a 24-year-old wing, was signed to a two-year AHL contract with Wilkes-Barre/Scranton out of the University of Wisconsin last spring. His 22 points (nine goals, 13 assists) in 20 games is tied for second in team scoring behind third-year pro forward Jordan Martel's 24 points. When I went to Wheeling last month, head coach Derek Army told me De St. Phalle is "just a worker, always invested."

"He always wants to do video, always wants to review," Army told me. "He works so hard, he can skate. He's always impacting the play. He's got a little bit of an edginess, which I love personally, a smaller guy (5-9, 170) having that little edginess, jawing with the other team. I do love that about him. He wants to be on the ice in the PK. He wants to be on the ice in every situation. So I really can appreciate that. He's been great, it's good to see him have success."

The 12-game win streak ties the Nailers' franchise record, achieved in both the 2003-04 and 2023-24 seasons. They'll have the opportunity to break that record on Saturday, with another game against the Royals in Reading.

The Nailers' points percentage of .825 leads the ECHL, and they're the only team with a points percentage above .800. They're two points shy of leading the league in points, albeit with three games in hand.

Penguins forward prospect Tanner Howe made Canada’s final roster for this month’s World Junior Championship.

Full attendance as the Penguins are about to practice here in Brossard at the Canadiens' practice facility before heading to Ottawa. No absences.

• Same lines, pairings. Jesse Puljujarvi, Ryan Shea, Kevin Hayes remain the odd ones out.

Rickard Rakell - Sidney Crosby - Bryan Rust
Michael Bunting - Evgeni Malkin- Phil Tomasino/Jesse Puljujarvi
Drew O'Connor - Cody Glass - Anthony Beauvillier
Matt Nieto - Blake Lizotte - Noel Acciari

Owen Pickering - Kris Letang
Marcus Pettersson - Erik Karlsson
Ryan Graves - Matt Grzelcyk
Kevin Hayes - Ryan Shea

• High-energy practice, and guys are in a light mood after the 9-2 win last night. The friendly competitions always increase the energy, especially when pushups are on the line:

In which I illustrate one of (very) few benefits of having studied French for eight years:

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."