Rangers top Peguins, 5-3, force Game 6

Unhappy with the way they played in two bad losses on the road that pushed them to the brink of elimination, the New York Rangers bounced back with a needed win to keep their season going.

Filip Chytil scored the tiebreaking goal early in the third period and the New York Rangers beat the Pittsburgh Penguins 5-3 Wednesday night in Game 5 of their first-round playoff series.

Jacob Trouba and Alexis Lafrenière each had a goal and an assist, and Adam Fox and Ryan Lindgren also scored for the Rangers. Igor Shesterkin, torched for 10 goals over three periods in the previous two games, had 27 saves.

“We were not happy with what happened in Pittsburgh,” Chytil said. “We just didn’t play the whole season (the) way that we played, just (to) lose games like this in Pittsburgh. So we just had a good meeting, good practice yesterday and we just believed today that we’re gonna win and we’re gonna go back to Pittsburgh.”

Jake Guentzel had two goals and Kris Letang also scored for Pittsburgh, which leads the best of seven series 3-2. Evgeni Malkin had two assists and Louis Domingue finished with 29 saves.

Penguins star Sidney Crosby left with about seven minutes remaining in the second period after taking a hard high hit from Trouba in the offensive zone minutes earlier. He did not return.

Pittsburgh coach Mike Sullivan said Crosby had an upper body injury and his status was being evaluated.

Game 6 is Friday in Pittsburgh, and a potential deciding Game 7 would be Sunday back at Madison Square Garden.

“We played a good 60 minutes,” Lafrenière said. “We defended well and played a good all-around game. We did a good job of staying calm. We have to keep it going and win Game 6. We played a really good one when we needed it most.”

The Rangers got their first power play of the night early in the third period and took advantage as Chytil got a pass from Lafrenière in the right circle, turned around and whipped a shot past Domingue to put the Rangers ahead 4-3 at 2:53.

Lindgren sealed the win with an empty-netter with 16 seconds left.

Letang extended the Penguins’ lead to 2-0 at 7:58 of the second as he got a crossice pass from Malkin and fired a slap shot past Shesterkin on Pittsburgh’s first shot on goal of the period.

The Rangers then took the lead as they scored on three consecutive shots in a 2:42 span late in the second.

Fox got the Rangers on the scoreboard with 4:49 left as he got the puck inside the blue line, slowly skated up and fired a shot from the top of the right circle past Domingue’s shoulder.

“Once we got that first goal, it was a big boost for our club,” Rangers coach Gerard Gallant said. “I felt real confident about today. You’ve got to take it one game at a time. We were down three games to one, today I felt real good about our team.”

Lafrenière tied it 90 seconds later as he quickly fired a slap shot in front off a centering pass from Kaapo Kakko.

Trouba put the Rangers ahead another 1:12 later as he skated across the right circle and put a backhander from the middle through Domingue’s skates.

“They pushed, we had a couple of extended D-zone shifts, and we didn’t get it done defensively,” Sullivan said. “We got an experienced group. We just got to keep playing the game . ... We didn’t win the wall battles, we didn’t get pucks out, and as a result we had four, five minutes of extended defensive zone play. We simply have to do a better job there.”