It looked like the Pittsburgh Penguins would waltz off with an easy victory in the first game of their playoff series against the Ottawa Senators when Evgeni Malkin scored just three minutes into the game on the power play.
Not so fast.
The Senators, with some help from a shaky Pens goalie Marc-Andre Fleury, took control of the game and did just enough to hold on for a 5–4 victory at Mellon Arena on Wednesday.
Fleury was the victim of three goals off rebounds from Peter Regin, Chris Neil, and Erik Karlsson. Regin and Neil put the Sens up 2–1 in the first period and Ottawa never trailed again.
Sens defenseman Chris Phillips said, “It’s not the start we wanted, to go a man down and for them to get a lot of momentum on the power play and fans were into it, but we didn’t let it faze us. We battled back.”
A bad start only got worse for Fleury as the Sens started the second period with a power play and capitalized. Chris Campoli’s shot bounced off the glass as Fleury left the net to retrieve the puck. Unfortunately for the Pens and Fleury, the puck bounced toward the front of the open net.
Ottawa’s Chris Kelly swooped in and scored into the vacant net for his fourth career playoff score.
Mellon Arena was stunned into silence as Pittsburgh clearly came in overconfident and not ready to play, down 3–1 barely a minute into the second period.
But there is always Sidney Crosby, Sergei Gonchar, and Malkin.
The trio earned a point each for the first goal and repeated the feat a second time midway through the second period after Malkin scored his second power play goal and 26th in his playoff career.
Even though the Senators credit the duo of Phillips and Anton Volchenkov for not allowing Crosby to score, with only two shot attempts, Crosby still finished with three assists. His third came off a beautiful pass from behind the net to set up Alex Goligoski who pulled the Pens to 5–4 with 2:24 left in the game.
Crosby said, “I think it’s more their team defense. They really focus on taking time and space away but that’s normal in the playoffs, so we gotta find a way to score goals.”
Ottawa’s third line of Neil, Kelly, and Jarkko Ruutu completely dominated the game, accounting for three goals and three assists. Neil and Kelly both assisted on Ruutu’s game-winning goal.
Senators’ goalie Brian Elliott played in his first career playoff game and got the win. He finished with 17 saves on 21 shots while his counterpart gave up five goals on 26 shots.
The two teams play again on Friday at Mellon Arena for Game 2 of the series. Pittsburgh needs to win that game and avoid going down 0–2 facing two games in Ottawa. “This is when it counts,” Crosby said.
Not so fast.
The Senators, with some help from a shaky Pens goalie Marc-Andre Fleury, took control of the game and did just enough to hold on for a 5–4 victory at Mellon Arena on Wednesday.
Fleury was the victim of three goals off rebounds from Peter Regin, Chris Neil, and Erik Karlsson. Regin and Neil put the Sens up 2–1 in the first period and Ottawa never trailed again.
Sens defenseman Chris Phillips said, “It’s not the start we wanted, to go a man down and for them to get a lot of momentum on the power play and fans were into it, but we didn’t let it faze us. We battled back.”
A bad start only got worse for Fleury as the Sens started the second period with a power play and capitalized. Chris Campoli’s shot bounced off the glass as Fleury left the net to retrieve the puck. Unfortunately for the Pens and Fleury, the puck bounced toward the front of the open net.
Ottawa’s Chris Kelly swooped in and scored into the vacant net for his fourth career playoff score.
Mellon Arena was stunned into silence as Pittsburgh clearly came in overconfident and not ready to play, down 3–1 barely a minute into the second period.
But there is always Sidney Crosby, Sergei Gonchar, and Malkin.
The trio earned a point each for the first goal and repeated the feat a second time midway through the second period after Malkin scored his second power play goal and 26th in his playoff career.
Even though the Senators credit the duo of Phillips and Anton Volchenkov for not allowing Crosby to score, with only two shot attempts, Crosby still finished with three assists. His third came off a beautiful pass from behind the net to set up Alex Goligoski who pulled the Pens to 5–4 with 2:24 left in the game.
Crosby said, “I think it’s more their team defense. They really focus on taking time and space away but that’s normal in the playoffs, so we gotta find a way to score goals.”
Ottawa’s third line of Neil, Kelly, and Jarkko Ruutu completely dominated the game, accounting for three goals and three assists. Neil and Kelly both assisted on Ruutu’s game-winning goal.
Senators’ goalie Brian Elliott played in his first career playoff game and got the win. He finished with 17 saves on 21 shots while his counterpart gave up five goals on 26 shots.
The two teams play again on Friday at Mellon Arena for Game 2 of the series. Pittsburgh needs to win that game and avoid going down 0–2 facing two games in Ottawa. “This is when it counts,” Crosby said.
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