Crosby scores pair . . . but Pens lose,
Pens captain nets pair; first post-season win in six years for Isles
PITTSBURGH— Sidney Crosby did what he always seems to do in big moments, scoring two quick goals in his return from a broken jaw.
He gave the Pittsburgh Penguins an early two-goal lead over the New York Islanders on Friday night. Then the Islanders responded, doing something they hadn’t managed in six years: win a playoff game.
Kyle Okposo’s well-timed fight in the second period gave his teammates some inspiration, and he capped a compelling New York rally with the winning goal with 7:37 to play. The Islanders’ 4-3 win evened the playoff series at one game each. Game 3 is Sunday at New York. And instead of heading to Nassau Coliseum in danger of being swept, the Islanders have momentum after a resilient 60 minutes.
“Our guys, they’re relentless,” Isles coach Jack Capuano said.
The Islanders needed to be after Crosby, wearing a plastic shield to protect the jaw he broke on March 30, found the back of the net twice in the first 7:37.
For a moment, the Islanders bench had a flashback to an ugly 5-0 loss in Game 1, when Pittsburgh struck for three early scores to take all the drama out of the proceedings.
Capuano kept telling his players all it would take is a bounce here or there to get back in it. The critical bounce came in the third period. Okposo fired a shot wide of the net that caromed back to the crease, then rolled off Pittsburgh goaltender Marc-Andre Fleury and across the goal line to give New York its first playoff win since April 14, 2007 against Buffalo.
“We’re in the series,” Okposo said. “We just wanted to come out and let them know that we’re not going away.”
Matt Moulson, Colin McDonald and Matt Martin also scored for the Islanders. Doctors cleared Crosby to play late Thursday and the arena erupted when No. 87 skated onto the ice. Adding the league’s third-leading scorer to the lineup figured to make the Isles’ task all the more daunting. Instead the Islanders counter-attacked effectively all night, providing the Penguins with an ugly re- minder of their first-round collapse against Philadelphia last spring when the Flyers lit them up for 30 goals in six games. New York peppered Fleury for 42 shots. Fleury turned aside 38, though that number doesn’t include the 18 Islanders shots that missed the net or the 19 that Pittsburgh blocked, numbers that kept Fleury busy all night.
“It’s the playoffs; you lose games sometimes,” Crosby said. “But I think we’ve got to make sure we learn from this one pretty quickly. It’s not the way we want to play, and we definitely have a lot of room to improve.”