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The Pittsburgh Penguins beat the St Louis Blues 5-1 at home to maintain their blistering start to the new season with a sixth win in a row.

The Penguins improved their NHL-best record to 8-1-0 to start the season and got goals came from five different skaters.

The Blues were simply blown away by the Stanley Cup champions, who outshot their opponents 20-3 in the first period.

"To be able to come out and play the way that we did, no matter who we're playing against, is a good feeling," said Matt Cooke, who had a goal and an assist.

"We also got scoring for a lot of different players and that's a big help."

Tyler Kennedy, Evgeni Malkin, Ruslan Fedotenko and Alex Goligoski scored the other goals for the Penguins, while Marc-Andre Fleury made 22 saves.

Pittsburgh dominated the early action, taking the first 10 shots of the game before Kennedy scored his team-leading fifth of the season at 11:19. Malkin made it 2-0 on a power play just over a minute later.

The Penguins added two more goals in the second period and another in the third.

Malkin had 12 shots on goal and Fleury improved to 8-0, setting a career best for most consecutive victories.

"It's a good feeling how well this team's playing right now," Fleury said. "I'm sure (a loss) will come, but hopefully we can keep it going."

Paul Kariya scored the lone goal for the Blues, who slipped to 3-3-1.

"For us not to be ready to play the defending Stanley Cup champions is unacceptable," Blues goalie Chris Mason said. "To come out like we did against these guys, this is what's going to happen."

Penguins defenseman Sergei Gonchar left the game with an undisclosed injury in the second period and did not return.

Team officials said he would be evaluated on Wednesday.

NHL Results on Tuesday (home team in CAPS):

PITTSBURGH 5 St Louis 1

MONTREAL 2 Atlanta 1 (SO)

CALGARY 6 Columbus 3

Reuters