Senators return favor to Penguins, 4-2
Pittsburgh trails the series 2-1. Game 4 is Tuesday at Mellon Arena.
PITTSBURGH (AP) -- The Ottawa Senators could live with giving away one game to Pittsburgh. What they were determined not to do was give away another playoff series.
Daniel Alfredsson scored twice during a second dominating Ottawa second period in as many days.
The Senators made this lead stand, taking Pittsburgh's stars and its crowd out of the game for a 4-2 victory Sunday in Game 3 of their first-round series.
Ottawa, rebounding from a 4-3 loss at home barely 24 hours before in which it twice squandered third-period leads, takes a 2-1 lead into Game 4 Tuesday night. Game 5 follows in Ottawa Thursday.
Pivotal point
"We can't afford to get down 3-1," the Penguins' Gary Roberts said. "We know that. We've got to come out with a much better effort Tuesday."
The Senators have been in control for all but 11/2 periods of the series, wining 6-3 in Game 1. Only this time -- unlike Saturday, when the Penguins came back with three goals in the third period -- they have the victory and the series lead to prove it.
"We should have probably buried them the other night and we didn't, but we put it behind us and did tonight," said Jason Spezza, who is well-versed in the lengthy list of Senators playoff failures over the last 10 years.
The Senators lost forward Patrick Eaves, taken off the ice on a stretcher after being leveled by an unpenalized Colby Armstrong hit with Ottawa up 3-1 midway through the second period. Eaves appeared to be knocked unconscious, but did not require hospitalization.
Though Spezza decried the hit, Senators coach Bryan Murray said, "It was a fair hit, a hockey hit, and we live with that."
Still, the game became visibly more physical after that, with several fights. Penguins rookie Evgeni Malkin even dropped the gloves to fight defenseman Chris Phillips late in the game.
Crosby limited
The Penguins were outshot 25-19 in the game and have been outshot 99-66 in the series. Sidney Crosby, the NHL scoring leader, had five shots, but didn't score until Ottawa had long since seized control. Malkin didn't score on his first four shots of the series.
"We have a lot of great forwards who can create offense, but we didn't do it tonight and that's why we lost the game," defenseman Sergei Gonchar said. "Our offense stopped in the neutral zone too many times."
The Penguins got a goal from longtime Senators agitator Roberts with only 52 seconds gone. The goal made an already loud crowd louder still.
But the Senators got the tying goal late in the period when Dean McAmmond put in a rebound of Eaves' shot from the slot that goalie Marc-Andre Fleury stopped but couldn't control.
An instant after the puck crossed the goal line, an upended Tom Preissing tumbled into the net past Fleury, but the goal counted and clearly energized the Senators. After that, they dominated the second period much like they did in outscoring the Penguins 2-0 and outshooting them in that period in Game 2.
Catalyst
"We were kind of waiting for something to happen, I guess, and once it did we started playing really well," Alfredsson said.
The Senators got the go-ahead goal early in the second. Joseph Corvo's shot from the left point deflected off Mike Fisher, allowing Mike Comrie to sweep the puck into the unattended side of the net with Fleury occupied on the other side.
Alfredsson's first goal came on a power play about five minutes later on a hard shot from the left wing circle to Fleury's short side. Alfredsson's third goal of the series came late in the period, just as a Penguins power play was ending, on a one-timer off McAmmond's pass to the left circle.
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