Pittsburgh Penguins Sidney Crosby, left, passes around Toronto Maple Leafs Pavel Kubina during first period NHL action in Toronto, Saturday, March 31, 2007
Sunday, April 01, 2007
By Dave Molinari, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
TORONTO -- For most of last evening, it looked as if the Penguins had gotten one of those short-term leases on first place in the Atlantic Division.
They moved in alone Thursday night, found themselves sharing the place 24 hours later, and were flirting with permanent eviction two periods into their game against Toronto at the Air Canada Centre.
And it's entirely possible that the point they salvaged in what became a 5-4 overtime loss to the Maple Leafs won't be enough to keep them atop the division for long. After all, even though they lead the Devils in points, 101-100, New Jersey has a game in hand, a weaker schedule and an edge in the first two tiebreakers -- including a guaranteed victory in the second, head-to-head competition.
Penguins center Maxime Talbot, though, noted that a game in hand doesn't automatically translate into points.
"A game in hand is not that great," he said, "if you don't win it."
Ottawa doesn't have a game in hand, but its 5-2 victory on Long Island gives the Senators a one-point lead on the Penguins if they end up battling for fourth place in the Eastern Conference. Fourth place comes with home-ice advantage in a first-round matchup, which will be unavoidable if the Penguins finish second in the Atlantic.
The Penguins earned their point with a fairly improbable comeback, as they spotted the Maple Leafs -- who are trying to claim a spot at the bottom of the Eastern playoff field -- a 4-1 lead before running off three unanswered goals, including one by defenseman Ryan Whitney with four seconds left in regulation.
That got them a point, but they were denied a second when Maple Leafs defenseman Tomas Kaberle ended the game by beating goalie Marc-Andre Fleury from the right point at 3:55 of overtime.
"It wasn't a very hard shot," Fleury said. "I just didn't see it."
That was the only shot of the 17 that he faced that eluded Fleury, who replaced Jocelyn Thibault after Toronto built its 4-1 advantage.
Chad Kilger put the Maple Leafs up, 1-0, at 4:28 of the opening period, backhanding in a Kyle Wellwood rebound from the crease, but Gary Roberts countered for the Penguins during a power play at 6:54.
Roberts, who had missed the previous game because of a bruised knee, staked out his customary spot in front of the net and deflected a knee-high slap shot by Sergei Gonchar out of the air and past Toronto goalie Andrew Raycroft.
The Maple Leafs regained the lead 90 seconds before the first intermission, as Alexei Ponikarovsky beat Thibault from the inner edge of the left circle, and Kaberle added to it when he scored from the left point at 3:08 of the second.
"They definitely took it to us off the start," Whitney said. "There's really no reason not to be ready in a game like that."
Toronto drove Thibault from the game at 11:49, as Bryan McCabe swatted in a rebound from the front lip of the crease while Penguins defenseman Brooks Orpik was serving a hooking minor.
"Maybe our focus was a tad behind theirs," Orpik said.
The Penguins began to play with a sense of urgency after Toronto took that 4-1 lead and finally regained their equilibrium at 16:31, when Talbot got a cross-ice feed from Michel Ouellet and stuck a shot behind Raycroft from the left side of the crease.
Although they failed to capitalize on a five-on-three power play that lasted 54 seconds early in the third, the Penguins pulled to within one when Sidney Crosby knocked in a Whitney rebound at 15:22 to run his league-leading points total to 117.
Crosby's goal gave them hope, although it seemed to be fading when Toronto had the puck in their zone with about 20 seconds left in regulation and Fleury on the bench.
"I still had some faith," Fleury said. "We've done it before."
And they did it again, as Whitney lashed a shot past Raycroft from the slot with four seconds remaining.
The point they earned with that goal was a nice reward for their comeback, the defeat a reasonable payback for their overall performance.
"They way we played [for] two periods, we were lucky to get a point," Orpik said. "So it's not the perfect outcome, but better than what it could have been."
(Dave Molinari can be reached at DWMolinari@Yahoo.com.)
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