Voting for the NHL's most valuable player will begin in a couple of weeks, and Sidney Crosby of the Penguins is sure to turn up on a lot of ballots.

Just not very high, at least on most of them.

The prevailing sentiment around the league seems to be that the Hart Trophy race -- if there actually is one -- has been distilled to a two-man competition between left winger Alex Ovechkin of Washington and Penguins center Evgeni Malkin.

Crosby, the thinking goes, is in a cluster of players behind those two, keeping company with the likes of Zach Parise, Pavel Datsyuk, Steve Mason and Miikka Kiprusoff, among others.

But even though he isn't going to get another Hart Trophy to show for it, Crosby, the NHL's No. 3 scorer, still has a knack for proving his value to the Penguins in breathtaking ways, at critical times.

Like midway through the third period of a tied game against the New York Rangers at Mellon Arena yesterday.

The score was 3-3 when Crosby pulled in a pass from Ruslan Fedotenko near the red line and slipped between New York defensemen Derek Morris and Wade Redden before throwing a shot past goalie Henrik Lundqvist from the inner edge of the left circle at 9:56 for the game-winner in a 4-3 victory.

"He can do some things occasionally," Penguins defenseman Rob Scuderi said, failing to suppress a laugh.

Yeah, every now and then.

Crosby's goal was his only point of the game, but stretched his scoring streak to 11 games. Malkin, meanwhile, had one assist, raising his league-leading points total to 107.

Those two are the driving forces behind the Penguins' offense most nights, but received considerable help from members of the supporting cast yesterday.

Fedotenko had three points, including his first goal in 16 games. Max Talbot scored one goal and set up another, his first multiple-point game since Nov. 11. Even Scuderi, the consummate defensive defenseman, earned an assist. (Fittingly, one stemming from a good defensive play, as he swept a Scott Gomez shot away from the goal line to start a sequence that led to Fedotenko's second-period goal.) "It was a team win," interim coach Dan Bylsma said.

Despite the win, the Penguins (41-27-8) remained in sixth place in the Eastern Conference due to victories by Philadelphia and Carolina last night. It sliced their magic numbers against Buffalo and Florida for clinching a playoff berth to seven and eight, respectively.

The Penguins moved three points ahead of New York and claimed a 3-1-2 decision in the season series, which will come into play if the teams finish tied in the standings and in victories, the first tiebreaker.

The Penguins finished March 10-1-2, and earned their last victory of the month despite failing to score on nine power plays. Rangers coach John Tortorella made his displeasure with the officiating known -- "The players play hard, and they're the ones that need to determine the result," he said. -- but perhaps he was unhappy that the Penguins didn't have the extra man even more often, since they did some of their least impressive work when they had the man-advantage.

"We tried to be too fancy," defenseman Kris Letang said.

They were careless a couple of times, too, twice taking a penalty four seconds after getting a power play.

Talbot gave the Penguins a 1-0 lead at 8:57 of the opening period, and Matt Cooke chipped in a shot at 11:20 to put them up two. The Rangers rebounded, though, when Ryan Callahan beat goalie Marc-Andre Fleury from inside the left circle at 18:28.

Callahan's goal was the first Fleury allowed in 78 minutes, 56 seconds, but he gave up another 87 seconds later, when Brandon Dubinsky's attempt to tuck the puck inside the right post bounced off his skate and in.

"That's something I don't usually let in," Fleury said. "After that, I tried to make some key saves."

He did, with the biggest coming about 75 seconds before regulation expired, as he denied Nik Antropov, who had scored New York's third goal, from close range.

"He came up huge," Talbot said. "He made the right stop at the right moment, and that's what you expect from him."

Just like the Penguins have come to expect Crosby to come through when the stakes are highest.