Penguins lose to Toronto, 6-2
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TORONTO -- The Penguins squandered a two-goal lead and lost to Toronto, 6-2, at the Air Canada Centre tonight.
The loss dropped the Penguins' record to 27-25-5 and leaves them five points of Buffalo and Florida, which are tied for seventh in the Eastern Conference.
Defenseman Sergei Gonchar, who missed the Penguins' first 56 games while recovering from surgery to repair his dislocated left shoulder, made his 2008-09 debut and took a regular shift alongside Rob Scuderi in addition to working on the power play.
Left winger Ruslan Fedotenko, out for the previous 15 games because of a broken right hand, returned to the lineup, too, and spent much of the evening on a line with Sidney Crosby and Tyler Kennedy.
Matt Cooke gave the Penguins a 1-0 lead 83 seconds after the opening faceoff by putting a shot between the legs of Maple Leafs goalie Vesa Toskala from the right side of the crease for his eighth of the season.
Assists went to Evgeni Malkin and Kris Letang.
Bill Thomas made it 2-0 with a short-handed goal at 8:34, as he lashed a shot past Toskala on the glove side from above the right dot while the Penguins were killing an interference minor to Brooks Orpik. Jordan Staal got the lone assist.
The goal was the second in two games for Thomas, who was the only Penguins player to score during regulation in their 2-1 shootout victory against San Jose Wednesday.
The Penguins got their first power play at 18:01, and Gonchar manned the right point for the entire 119 seconds before the intermission.
But while the Penguins controlled play for much of the first period, Toronto dominated the second, as evidenced by its 14-5 edge in shots.
Nik Antropov of the Maple Leafs made it 2-1 when he knocked a puck out of the air and past goalie Marc-Andre Fleury from in front of the net at 12:53, two seconds after a roughing minor to Staal expired. The goal came on Toronto's 24th shot, and turned out to be the first of six in a row.
Rather than regrouping for the start of the third period, the Penguins unraveled.
Jason Blake of Toronto tied the game 55 seconds into the third period by shoevling in a backhander from in front of the net, then put the Maple Leafs in front 19 seconds later.
The go-ahead goal was made possible when ex-Penguin Dominic Moore picked off a cross-ice pass and fed the puck to Blake, who was alone in front of Fleury.
Their implosion continued when John Mitchell scored from in front at
7:13 and Fleury had to make a lunging stop on Blake 30 seconds later to keep the Penguins within two.
Alexei Ponikarovsky jammed in another point-blank goal at 13:18 to remove any suspense about the outcome and Matt Stajan added an exclamation point by beating Fleury from the high slot at 15:51.
The Penguins will visit the New York Islanders Monday at 2:08 p.m.
First Published February 14, 2009 9:45 pm
