Comeback kids
PITTSBURGH — The Penguins of Mario Lemieux and Jaromir Jagr were known for their comebacks, so this wouldn't have been all that unexpected. These were the Penguins of Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin doing it, though, and that left Jagr disappointed, frustrated and more than a little surprised.
The New York Rangers led 3-0 early in the second period of their playoff series opener in Pittsburgh Friday night, a lead that looked very safe with Vezina Trophy finalist Henrik Lundqvist in net. The Rangers can lock down a lead as well as any NHL team, and they appeared to be wearing down the Penguins with their patience and commitment to defense.
And, too, with an edge in experience they hoped would prove decisive against a Penguins lineup that has won all of one playoff series together and features two stars in their early 20s.
But on a night filled with tricky bounces and lucky hops on a soft ice surface, the youthful Penguins grew up a little more by pulling off a 5-4 comeback victory completed by Malkin's deflection of Crosby's power-play slap shot with 1:41 remaining.
"We have a lot of guys who can score goals here, and sometimes it's just a matter of time," Petr Sykora said after Pittsburgh's fifth consecutive victory in these playoffs. "And we did it."
The Penguins twice scored two goals in 20 seconds or less.
Jarkko Ruutu and Pascal Dupuis scored 14 seconds apart halfway through the second period to get them back into the game at 3-2 following consecutive goals by the Rangers' Martin Straka, Chris Drury and Sean Avery.
"They maybe thought we were going to close the book right there, but we came back hard," Dupuis said.
Marian Hossa and Sykora needed only 20 seconds early in the third to turn a 3-2 Rangers lead into a 4-3 Pittsburgh edge, but the Rangers' Scott Gomez tied it on a one-timer off Jagr's pass midway through the third.
The Penguins' game winner might have been the oddest goal in a game filled with them.
Crosby went outside of his normal range to put a slap shot on net from beyond the right circle, with the puck deflecting off Malkin's shin guard and past Lundqvist for the Penguins' only power-play goal in seven chances.
"I think two or three goals they didn't work that hard, they just bounced off our players and in. ... I definitely think they got the breaks and, hopefully, we can turn this around the next game," Lundqvist said.
Crosby doesn't own the best slap shot, so Malkin marveled at how he could take such a good one at such a key time.
"His slap shot is, uhh, not that good," Malkin said through an interpreter. "That shot he just put everything in it, all the motion, all the power and he shot that puck that hard."
Jagr, in the last year of his contract and uncertain of his future, was among the most disappointed Rangers after they gave away a road playoff game they had won — the kind of loss, he knows, that can prove costly in a short series.
Jagr, who won the Stanley Cup in his first two NHL seasons with Pittsburgh in 1991 and 1992, talked earlier in the week of how the NHL has changed, with the talent more equal and nearly every team playing strong defense. For all their skills, he said, even Crosby and Malkin can't pile up point after point in the playoffs like Lemieux once could.
That, of course, was before Malkin and Crosby combined for four points in a period and a half.
Was it a great Penguins comeback or a dreadful Rangers collapse?
"You've got to play 60 minutes and don't look at the score," said Jagr, who felt the Rangers got away from what they did while taking the lead. "That one hurts. I thought we had it. The second one (game) is going to be even tougher, but we have to do it somehow."
