PITTSBURGH - It was hat night at the Igloo, the final cruel joke of a Ranger road trip that began so brightly and then couldn't end soon enough.
John Tortorella called Friday night's stinker in Tampa "probably our worst game we've played all year," and Saturday night's in the Steel City wasn't a great deal better, in spite of the solid second period, in spite of the fact that they made it close briefly in the third. They were just too porous, from the goal crease on out, too giving in the middle of the ice, and the Penguins didn't win the Stanley Cup for nothin'.
Pittsburgh's captain, Sidney Crosby, sent most of the fans home without their freebies, capping his fourth career hat trick 11:29 into the third period as the Penguins poured it on in an 8-3 rout that sent the Rangers back home with a 1-2 road trip that began with a satisfying victory at Florida and ended with pummelings on consecutive nights.
Crosby scored once in the Penguins' three-goal first period and twice in the four-goal third, and also set up two more for a five-point night. All of it came at the expense of Steve Valiquette, the Ranger backup who has given up seven or more goals in two of his five starts and has an .852 save percentage.
"It's a concern," Tortorella said. "I feel bad for the guy because I thought he gave us a chance in the first two periods, but unfortunately it's a 60-minute hockey game."
Valiquette had relieved Henrik Lundqvist in the Rangers' 5-1 loss the night before, and his presence in goal Saturday night was at least a change of pace for a team that is now 1-11-1 in its last 13 visits to the Igloo, to which they will make only one more regular-season visit before the Pens cut the ribbon on the new rink across the street.
Valiquette's stops on Evgeni Malkin and Matt Cooke in the early going opened the door for the Rangers to take the lead on Marc Staal's goal 8:50 in. But less than six minutes later, when an icing forced an out-of-place Aaron Voros to take a defensive-zone draw, Crosby sent him flying and set the table for Malkin's tying goal. Crosby's tally at 17:43, followed by Maxime Talbot's 46 seconds later, put the Penguins comfortably ahead.
The key goal, though, came at the end of the second, after Matt Gilroy's fourth of the year had the Rangers poised to tackle a one-goal deficit entering the third. Mark Eaton's last-ditch heave from the wall above the left circle ticked off Michael Del Zotto's stick and past Valiquette as the buzzer sounded. Replays showed the puck crossing the line with three-tenths of a second left. The scoresheet showed Del Zotto a miserable minus-5.
"You only get so many chances to come back against a team like this," said Vinny Prospal. "We just can't seem to come away with a complete game, a 60-minute game. There's some stretches, or just half a minute of these hockey games that are putting us into a lot of trouble."
The goal loomed all the larger when Michal Rozsival scored 33 seconds into the third to cut it to 4-3. Valiquette's giveaway behind the net to Malkin led to Crosby's bank-in off the scrambling goaltender to restore the two-goal cushion at 3:14, and after that, there was little left for the Rangers to do except demand satisfaction from Cooke for his blindside hit to Artem Anisimov's head - and for Crosby to cap his hat trick with Donald Brashear in the penalty box for just that.
The Rangers would prefer if the league excused Cooke from tomorrow night's rematch at the Garden, which will be the Blueshirts' sixth game in 10 nights. Since the final win of a seven-game streak back on Oct. 17, the Rangers are 6-11-1 with two shootout victories.
"I thought we did compete harder, but at the end of the day we've got to get better results," said Ryan Callahan, who fought Cooke in the third. "It's one thing to compete hard and battle hard; this league's about winning. At the end of the day we've got to get a win."
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