Reeling Penguins boil over

Captain Sidney Crosby used his fists to express his frustration in a 6-1 loss.

PITTSBURGH (AP) — The reeling Pittsburgh Penguins lost again — this time, sending captain Sidney Crosby to his boiling point.

Nathan Horton scored twice and the Florida Panthers snapped a four-game losing streak with a 6-1 win over Pittsburgh on Saturday that sent the Penguins to their fourth straight loss.

Down 4-1 late in the second period, Crosby got into the second fight of his career — going after Brett McLean right off the faceoff deep in Florida’s end.

Just a few minutes after he was penalized for a scrum with Gregory Campbell, Crosby was given 19 minutes in penalties for fighting, unsportsmanlike conduct and an instigator.

“I asked him to go, and he said yes. And usually, yes means yes,” said Crosby, who fought Boston’s Andrew Ference last season. “I mean, I wouldn’t have wasted 20 minutes in the box for that. I guess he didn’t take me serious. I don’t know, it wasn’t worth 20 minutes, though, that’s for sure.”

Ville Peltonen, Bryan McCabe, Richard Zednik and Michael Frolik also scored and Keith Ballard, Cory Stillman, Nick Boynton and Stephen Weiss each had two assists for Florida, which pulled within three points of the Penguins for eighth place in the Eastern Conference standings.

Ruslan Fedotenko scored for Pittsburgh, which has lost 10 of 14, five straight at home and was handed its worst home loss in almost two years. Florida goalie Craig Anderson stopped 29 shots.

“It was a huge game... I couldn’t have scripted anything better,” Panthers coach Peter DeBoer said. “It’s hopefully what the doctor ordered for us.”

Pittsburgh entered the game having lost five of seven and had been hoping that facing the struggling Panthers would reverse that trend.

Now having lost six of eight, Crosby’s frustration grew after gaining only four points in that time.

Crosby threw his gloves off and grabbed an apparently unsuspecting McLean, who was kneeling over to take the faceoff. McLean eventually was able to drop his gloves and attempted a few swings but did not connect. His nose was bleeding as he left the ice, but that apparently was just due to the breaking open of a scab when he fell to the ice.

Crosby’s punches were more directed at McLean’s shoulders as he tried to take McLean’s jersey off.

McLean, who said he did not hear Crosby ask him for a fight, took the incident in stride.

“Everybody can kind of understand what he’s doing for their team there,” McLean said. “He’s their leader.”