Jaromir Jagr? Didn't hurt the Penguins all evening. Or even come close.

Same with Brendan Shanahan.

Scott Gomez was held to a second assist, which is one more than Chris Drury managed.

New York's high-profile forwards were barely a factor, let alone a force, at Mellon Arena last night. No matter, though, because the Rangers' defensemen more than made up for it, generating all four goals in a 4-3 overtime victory.

"That's a sign of when things are going well for you," Penguins coach Michel Therrien said. "And things are going really well for the Rangers right now."

Yes, extremely. Jason Strudwick's winner at 1:40 of the extra period gave New York (12-7-1) a five-game winning streak and its ninth victory in the past 10 games.

"The past couple of weeks, we haven't taken a back seat to anybody," Rangers coach Tom Renney said.

The Penguins, meanwhile, slipped to 1-4-1 in their past six and 8-10-2 overall.

Strudwick ended the game when the Rangers got a two-on-one break and he charged toward the net before deflecting a feed from Paul Mara (a defenseman, of course) past goalie Marc-Andre Fleury. Mara put his pass between the legs of defenseman Brooks Orpik and onto Strudwick's stick at the lip of the crease.

"I had a good head of speed going, so I thought what the [heck], let's go for it," Strudwick said. "Paul made an incredible pass. All I had to do was try to get my stick on it and push it in the net."

While Strudwick was an unlikely hero -- he didn't have a point in 12 previous games this season -- the idea that the game would go to overtime seemed every bit as improbable after the first period, because of the way the Penguins dominated play then.

They also opened the scoring for the first time in the past six games and did it in spectacular fashion.

Sidney Crosby -- making a rare appearance in the early stages of a penalty-kill -- got control of the puck after Maxime Talbot blocked a Daniel Girardi shot in the defensive zone. Crosby rushed it into the New York end before throwing a pass that Talbot deflected behind New York goalie Henrik Lundqvist at 5:51.

The goal was Talbot's fifth of the season, but first in 15 games. Crosby's assist stretched his scoring streak to 19 games, but was not his final point of the period.

Exactly three minutes after Talbot scored, Crosby beat Lundqvist from along the goal line to the right of the net to make it 2-0. The goal, Crosby's 11th, came while a penalty was pending against the Rangers and Fleury had been replaced by an extra skater.

The Penguins had a few opportunities to pad their lead, like when Petr Sykora got an uncontested shot from eight feet in front a little over three minutes after it became 2-0, but could not capitalize.

"We had a two-goal lead early and weren't able to build on it," Crosby said.

"Lundqvist held them in the game. If we get that third one, we bury them."

The Penguins did get it eventually, but not until after the Rangers had scored three in a row.

Former Penguins defenseman Michal Rozsival sliced the Penguins' lead to 2-1 49 seconds into the second period, then hammered a short-handed slap shot over Fleury's glove at 4:05 to tie the game.

"He likes to jump in [to the play] and he's playing with a lot of good players who can pass the puck to him," Sykora said. "And, with his shot, he's got a pretty good shot to score some goals."

Girardi put New York in front with a power-play goal at 18:35, as he collected a loose puck at the inner edge of the left circle and threw it behind Fleury. That goal came on the fifth of New York's six chances with the extra man; the Penguins had one and were held without a man-advantage goal for just the second time this season.

Although the Rangers neutralized the Penguins' offense for most of the third period, Sykora forced overtime by shoveling a backhander behind Lundqvist at 14:28, just 38 seconds after the Penguins finished killing a hooking minor to Evgeni Malkin.

Sykora got the puck from Malkin, who was unable to get his stick on it but managed to kick it to Sykora. That assist gave Malkin a point in 13 consecutive games.

Sykora's goal salvaged a point for the Penguins, but didn't allow them to get the two they seemed poised to claim a couple of hours earlier.

"Everything was going our way," defenseman Sergei Gonchar said.

"For whatever reason, we let that game slip away."