Mary Altaffer, Associated Press The Rangers' Matt Cullen trips Jordan Staal while they battle for the puck last night the first period at Madison Square Garden in New York. Click photo for larger image. Related articles Penguins Notebook: Staal won't play in world juniors Penguins Q&A with Dave Molinari

NEW YORK -- It's possible to earn a good point on the road.

Happens all the time, actually. A team goes into a hostile building, has to overcome adversity and maybe play from behind for much of the game, and eventually gets rewarded for its effort, even if it loses in overtime or a shootout.

Forgive the Penguins, though, for not thinking of their 3-2 shootout loss last night to the New York Rangers at Madison Square Garden that way.

It's tough for any team -- especially one that was 1-4-2 in its previous seven games -- to be terribly satisfied with a single point when it owned a two-goal lead with less than 12 minutes left in regulation. When it had been playing an almost-flawless game and was getting contributions from pretty much everybody in the lineup.

"We'll take the point," center Sidney Crosby said. "We're not going to complain. But at the same time, it's too bad we were so close, and weren't able to close the deal."

The Penguins (11-11-5) lost their chance for a second point when Rangers goalie Henrik Lundqvist stopped Evgeni Malkin, Nils Ekman and Crosby during the shootout. No surprise there, since Lundqvist has stopped all 22 shootout shots he has faced this season.

Penguins goalie Marc-Andre Fleury, meanwhile, stopped Matt Cullen of the Rangers, but only after Brendan Shanahan had beaten him for what proved to be the only goal of the shootout.

Penguins coach Michel Therrien overhauled his top two lines before the game, putting Crosby between Ryan Malone and Mark Recchi and Malkin with Erik Christensen and Colby Armstrong.

The changes did not yield a five-on-five or four-on-four goal.

Fleury, coming off one wretched performance and one lackluster one last weekend, produced a spectacular -- and critical -- stop at 4:10 of the first period, after the Penguins turned the puck over while Jaromir Jagr and Michael Nylander of the Rangers were behind their defense.

Jagr got the puck and fed it across the crease to Nylander, who was alone near the left post, but Fleury was able to throw out his right leg and stop the shot.

That save spared his team the perils of having to play from behind, and the Penguins ended up with the only goal of the period when Ekman, who had gone 12 games without scoring, converted a penalty shot at 18:38.

Ekman was awarded it when New York defenseman Aaron Ward tripped him from behind on a breakaway.

On the penalty shot, Ekman moved down the right side of the slot, then eased back into the middle of the ice and pulled the puck onto his backhand before flipping it past Lundqvist for his sixth of the season.

"I think I can do a lot better than I've done lately," Ekman said. "So it felt good."

Nylander, who plays between Jagr and Martin Straka on New York's No. 1 line, left the Garden before the second period because he wife was in labor and delivered their sixth child before the game was over.

Crosby had a relatively low profile during the opening period, when he logged just four minutes and 10 seconds of ice time, but that changed in the middle of the second.

Dramatically.

Crosby seems to have decided that any game without a signature goal is a waste, and got his latest at 11:33 on another strong individual effort while the Penguins were on the first of their three power plays.

He took a pass from Recchi in the defensive zone, then lugged the puck the length of the ice -- blowing past or between all four Rangers after crossing the New York blue line -- before throwing it past Lundqvist for his 12th.

But while the Penguins appeared to be in control as the middle of the third period approach, New York was revived by a short-handed goal at 8:43, when Blair Betts deflected a Jason Ward knuckler out of the air and past Fleury 15 seconds before a Penguins power play was to expire.

The Rangers pulled even on a power-play goal by Shanahan 90 seconds later, as he hammered a slap shot over Fleury's glove from the top of the left circle at 10:13, 20 seconds after Malkin was called for high-sticking.

The Penguins hung on through the rest of regulation and overtime, but couldn't survive the shootout.

"I don't know what to say," Ekman said. "It feels bad, though. I'll tell you that. ... We should have closed this out. Won this game."

Yeah. Good point.