Crosby scores twice in Pens’ win

PITTSBURGH (AP) — Sidney Crosby found a lot of ways to score in his 300th career NHL regular-season game.

Crosby had a power-play goal and a short-handed score in the third period, and had the only goal in a shootout to help the Pittsburgh Penguins win their seventh straight game, 3-2 over the Florida Panthers on Friday night.

“We struggled in the first half, but we were able to rebound,” said Crosby, who has 407 career points. “We stuck with things, and that shows a lot.”

After erasing a two-goal deficit in the third period, Crosby beat Tomas Vokoun with a nifty deke in the shootout for the Stanley Cup champion Penguins, an NHL-best 9-1-0.

Steven Reinprecht scored twice in the first period for Florida. The Panthers have lost six of seven to drop to 2-5-1.

“The effort’s good, but effort doesn’t get you two points,” Florida defenseman Keith Ballard said. “We were kind of dumb in the third period. We took too many penalties and stayed in our end the whole time... In the third, they pick it up a little bit and it’s almost like we just kind of clammed up just trying to hang.”

In the shootout, Crosby moved in slowly on Vokoun and made three moves to his forehand before finally tucking it into the net as Vokoun dove to his left.

Crosby improved to 3-for-3 in shootouts this season with his 10th career game-deciding shootout goal.

Brent Johnson stopped the Panthers’ Reinprecht, Ville Koistinen and Nathan Horton during the shootout and made 27 saves during regulation and overtime in winning for the first time as a Penguin.

Pittsburgh won in the first game since All-Star defenseman Sergei Gonchar was lost for at least four weeks because of a broken bone in his wrist.

“We were still in striking distance (heading into the third),” Crosby said. “We felt like even in the second half of the second period, we created some chances. Even though we were down 2-0 going into the third, we felt like we were pretty close.”

Crosby tied it with 3:19 to play with his short-handed goal, one-timing a feed from Evgeni Malkin with a shot that appeared to deflect off a Florida player. The short-handed goal was the first in the NHL for Crosby.