Ottawa scores two early goals, never looks back in 6-3 win

2012-03-17 06:03:59

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Peter Diana, Post-Gazette
It was a painful playoff debut for Sidney Crosby and his teammates as they were roughed up by the host Ottawa Senators, 6-3.By Dave Molinari, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

OTTAWA -- The Penguins have two days off before Game 2 of their first-round playoff series against Ottawa.

That's unusual, but not necessarily bad.

Should give them enough time to review all the things that went wrong in their 6-3 loss to the Senators in the series-opener at Scotiabank Place last night.

As long as they don't go into too much detail on any of them, anyway. Do that, and it could take weeks to cover them all.

"There's no one in the room who can say they really played well," defenseman Brooks Orpik said.

Or many who even can say they performed OK, for that matter.

The Senators, to their considerable credit, played with the commitment of a team intent on refurbishing its tarnished playoff reputation in one evening. They outhustled, outhit and outworked the Penguins at least as decisively as they outscored them.

"They came out and played their best game," right winger Mark Recchi said. "And we didn't play a very good game."

The Penguins will get another chance at 3:08 p.m. Saturday, and Recchi vowed that the Penguins will look a lot more like the club that piled up 105 points during the regular season.

"We're going to be ready Saturday," he said. "We'll be the team that we've been all year."

Maybe, but last night, Ottawa was the team it has wanted to be for nearly a decade. It dominated the first period, running up a 16-4 advantage in shots and grabbing a quick, 2-0 lead.

"That's the quickest team I've faced since I turned pro, the first 10 minutes they played," Penguins defenseman Brooks Orpik said.

The Penguins' problems were compounded by a bit of bad luck early as goalie Marc-Andre Fleury hit the left goalpost with his skate while returning to the crease and lost his balance while play was in the Penguins' zone.

As he fell, Ottawa center Mike Fisher tossed a backhanded centering pass from behind the goal line. It made it all the way to the left point, where defenseman Andrej Mezsaros grabbed it and threw it into the net before Fleury could scramble back to his feet, just 97 seconds after the opening faceoff.

Chris Kelly put the Senators up by two after Penguins defenseman Mark Eaton blocked a shot in the slot. Because Eaton was on his knees, he was unable to clear the puck, and Kelly grabbed it and threw the puck between Fleury's legs at 6:38.

"We knew they were going to come out hard," Recchi said.

"It was everything we expected. We just didn't match it."

Ottawa made it 3-0 at 14:38 of the second. After the Penguins failed in repeated attempts to get the puck out of their end, defenseman Tom Preissing lashed a shot over Fleury's glove from the right dot.

Jordan Staal scored for the Penguins at 16:58, jamming a shot past Ottawa goalie Ray Emery from the right side of the crease, but Ottawa regained its three-goal edge when Dany Heatley swept in a loose puck nine seconds into the third for what proved to be the winner.

Crosby appeared to counter just 14 seconds later, when he went hard to the net and a Colby Armstrong rebound went off his left leg and over the goal line, but the goal was disallowed after a video review by officials in Toronto after they determined he was guilty of using a "distinct kicking motion" to direct the puck into the net.

"I thought for sure it was going to be a goal," Crosby said. "That's a tough one to take."

That ruling snuffed any comeback hopes the Penguins had. Ottawa piled on with goals by tough guy Chris Neil on a two-on-zero break at 5:39 and Mike Comrie on a deflection at 8:22.

Penguins coach Michel Therrien replaced Fleury with Jocelyn Thibault after Ottawa went up by five, and the Penguins got goals from Sergei Gonchar (12:42) and Crosby (19:11) to whittle the Senators' margin of victory to three.

That didn't make a difference, of course, but neither does anything except that Ottawa owns a 1-0 advantage in the series.

"You can lose a game in triple-overtime or you can lose it, 6-3," Orpik said. "At the end of the day, it doesn't really make a difference. It's a long series. You just move on."

Peter Diana, Post-Gazette
Penguins goalie Marc-Andre Fleury makes a save against the Senators in the second period. Fleury had a tough night in his NHL playoff debut, allowing six goals on 36 shots.
Click photo for larger image.