The Penguins' Evgeni Malkin (71 )is greeted by Sidney Crosby after scoring his first goal of the season in Saturday night's 4-0 win over Nashville.

PITTSBURGH — After a rocky start to their Stanley Cup title defense, the Pittsburgh Penguins are just happy to be back on track.

They rebounded against the team they beat for the championship in June as Evgeni Malkin scored, Matt Murray stopped 26 shots and the Penguins beat the Nashville Predators 4-0 on Saturday night in a Stanley Cup Final rematch.

“I think we felt like we weren’t playing hard enough and the urgency wasn’t there the first couple games in general,” Penguins captain Sidney Crosby said. “Every guy felt like we all had better to give and you see the result you get tonight when we do that.”

Olli Maatta, Ryan Reaves and Jake Guentzel also scored in Pittsburgh’s first win in its third game of the season. The two-time defending champion Penguins were outscored 15-5 in their first two games and coming off an ugly 10-1 loss at Chicago on Thursday night. It was their worst defensive performance since allowing 10 goals against San Jose in 1996.

Reaves, who wore a Pittsburgh Steelers’ football helmet when he met with the media after the game, also provided a physical response.

Reaves, acquired in a June trade with St. Louis, fought Austin Watson and Cody McLeod, finishing with 24 penalty minutes. He skated on a line with Crosby when the game turned chippy in the third period.

Murray, who allowed 11 goals on 65 shots in his first two games, posted his sixth career shutout. He also shut out Nashville in the final two games of the series in June.

“We weren’t happy with either of the games prior to this,” Murray said. “This is our first really good team effort.”

Nashville forward Nick Bonino faced his former team for the first time since signing a four-year, $16.4 million contract with the Predators in July.