Crosby’s goal lifts Penguins

His winning goal in OT over the Sabres snapped a career-high scoreless streak.

BUFFALO, N.Y. (AP) — With one deflection, Sidney Crosby ended a personal goal-scoring drought and helped the Pittsburgh Penguins make up for a poor performance.

Crosby scored 43 seconds into overtime, snapping a career-high nine-game scoreless streak, and lifting the Penguins to a 4-3 victory over the Buffalo Sabres on Monday night.

Pittsburgh, which improved to 4-5-1 in December, also rebounded from one of its poorest efforts of the year on Saturday in 7-3 loss to Toronto.

“We bounced back from last game and played a good hockey game,” Crosby said. “We were working hard, and I thought we deserved to win. Hopefully we can build off of this.”

Crosby stopped his drought when he tipped in Evgeni Malkin’s shot past goalie Ryan Miller. The play survived a two-minute video review that confirmed Crosby’s stick was under the crossbar when he touched it.

“It was pretty close,” said Crosby, who scored for the first time since netting a hat trick against New Jersey last month.

“But I don’t think it was [a high-stick]. My stick was angled down. If I would have hit it a little higher up, I think we would have been flirting with danger a little bit more.”

Alex Goligoski scored twice and added an assist, and Marc-Andre Fleury made 32 saves to help the Penguins rally from a two-goal deficit.

Pascal Dupuis also scored, and Malkin had three assists for Pittsburgh (18-11-4), which won for the second time in three games.

Ales Kotalik and Daniel Paille had a goal and assist each, and Clarke MacArthur also scored for the Sabres (16-13-5), who lost their second straight and third in their last four.

Miller finished with 18 saves.

Down by a goal after two periods, Pittsburgh tied it 3-3 on the power play on Goligoski’s second of the game, a wrist shot from the middle of the blue line that got past a screened Miller with under 9 minutes left in regulation.

Paille opened the scoring with his fourth of the year just a minute into the game.

Kotalik upped the Sabres’ lead to 2-0 with his eighth 5:23 into the second period.

After taking a feed from Paille, Kotalik went in alone on Fleury from the blue line and wristed a shot from the slot over the goalie’s glove hand.

Dupuis cut the deficit in half with his seventh 55 seconds later, sending a wrist shot from the slot that squirted between Miller’s right arm and body.

Goligoski tied it at 2 with 7:37 left in the second, netting his fifth of the year when his wrist shot from the right point eluded Miller, but MacArthur’s power-play goal with 4:02 remaining gave Buffalo the lead again.