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Rangers score three in third to beat Penguins
The New York Rangers’ Martin Rucinsky, Alex Kovalev and Bobby Holik celebrate
AP Photo
Karen Price can be reached via e-mail or at 412-320-7980.
But the Rangers had their own party in the third period, scoring three goals to break open a tie game and hand the Penguins a 4-1 loss.
Martin Rucinsky scored two goals, including the winner, and Alexei Kovalev and Bobby Holik had two assists in the win. Eric Lindros made it 3-1 and Brian Leetch added a shorthanded goal, as the Penguins' streak of three games earning at least a point ended.
Fleury made 31 saves and Rico Fata had the only goal for the Penguins (5-11-4-1), who again struggled to find the net.
"It was a frustrating game," Penguins forward Steve McKenna said. "We got down by one in the first, we won the second period and tied it up going into the third, and I don't know why we would be tense. I don't think we should be nervous. They just made a couple of great individual plays out there and they beat us. We got away from our system and once that snowball got rolling, we were in trouble."
The Penguins were 1-0-1-1 in their previous three games, and had allowed a total of just four goals-against in that time.
Fata scored on the power play, but the Penguins let five other man-advantages slip away. That included two nearly back-to-back power plays late in the second period when the game was tied 1-1, and another in between Rucinsky's game winner and Lindros' nail in the coffin. They totaled three shots on six power plays and went through four advantages without getting the puck to the net once.
"Obviously on your power play, you want to bury it," Ryan Malone said. "I think we're doing an all right job once we get in the zone and get set up getting pucks to the net. We just gave them too many-odd man breaks."
On their sixth power play of the game late in the third, Leetch scored the league-high eighth shorthanded goal against the Penguins.
Penguins coach Eddie Olczyk did not meet with the media after the game.
The Rangers didn't have a shot on goal until almost the 10-minute mark of the first period. They made it 1-0 when Rucinsky drove down the left side to the net after a 3-on-2 outnumbered situation and converted a hard pass from Kovalev on the opposite boards at 14:56.
Fata tied it at 6:28 of the second period with 10 seconds remaining in the Penguins' second power play of the game. He got a pass behind the goal line from Patrick Boileau, carried the puck up to the top of the right circle and sent a slap shot past goaltender Jussi Markkanen for his team-leading eighth goal of the year.
Then, the onslaught started in the third. Rucinsky netted the winner at 3:34 when he beat Tom Kostopoulos to the net to turn another Kovalev pass into a goal. It was Kovalev's first game back in Pittsburgh since his trade to the Rangers last February.
"We were in it until the third and obviously we just had a couple breakdowns and it ended up being that way," Malone said. "We're disappointed we lost and we deserved to."
A crowd of 15,908, the Penguins second-largest of the season and the first to break the 14,000-mark since opening night, watched the loss.
