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Ruutu's shootout goal lifts Penguins past Senators

Nov 23, 2007 - 4:49 AM OTTAWA (Ticker) -- The Pittsburgh Penguins picked up a measure of retribution Thursday night.

Jarkko Ruutu scored the decisive goal in the shootout and Ryan Malone notched two goals and set up another as the Penguins posted a 6-5 comeback victory over the Ottawa Senators.

"It shows that never-say-die attitude that we have," Malone said. "It's a good comeback win for us. We're trying to keep a good attitude and strong work ethic and tonight it worked in our favor. That's definitely a big win for us against one of the best teams in the league."

Jason Spezza had two tallies and set up another and Daniel Alfredsson added three assists for the Senators, who knocked the Penguins out of last season's playoffs in the first round.

"The way things went last year in the playoffs was on our minds," Malone said. "But had some success in this rink in the regular season last year so we wanted to show them that we can play them tough here."

In the fifth round of the bonus format, Ruutu went to the backhand and beat goaltender Martin Gerber between the pads to hand Ottawa its first back-to-back losses of the campaign.

The only other goals of the shootout came in the first round when Spezza fired a wrist shot between the pads of Pittsburgh netminder Dany Sabourin.

Erik Christensen, however, responded by slamming a wrist shot just over the goal line on Gerber's stick side. The tally was initially waved off, but video review confirmed that it was a goal.

Trailing, 5-3, in the third period, Malone and defenseman Sergei Gonchar scored a pair of power-play goals just 71 ticks apart to tie the game at the 7:07 mark.

"We let them back in the game twice," Alfredsson said. "We had our chances to win it, but we didn't do it tonight."

Spezza opened the scoring at 4:56 of the first period when he knocked a rebound past Penguins goaltender Marc-Andre Fleury. After blue-liner Luke Richardson's shot was blocked, Spezza banged the puck between Fleury's pads and the puck slowly rolled into the goal to give the Senators a 1-0 edge.

Ottawa doubled its lead with 9:05 remaining in the opening session when blue-liner Chris Phillips took a feed from Chris Kelly and delivered a slap shot from the point that sneaked through traffic, eluding Fleury on his low glove side.

The goal ended the night for Fleury, who stopped just two of the four shots he faced.

The Penguins rallied for two goals in an 18-second span to tie the game at 2-2 with 1:35 left in first.

"This was important for us coming off a loss last night," Malone said. "It seems like we've been finding ways to lose games, so staying with it tonight and getting the two points. That's a big win for our team."

Evgeni Malkin extended his point streak to 15 games and halved the deficit when he scored his ninth goal of the season on a long breakaway. Malkin beat two defenders at center ice and snapped a shot past the right pad of Gerber.

"The most important thing for us is the win." Malkin said. "If you keep a points streak going it is good, but hopefully it means you're winning games too."

Malone wasted little time knotting the score at 2-2 when he took a drop-back pass from Sidney Crosby and fired a quick wrist shot from the top of the right circle that beat Gerber on the stick side.

"We got off to a tough start," Crosby said. "And our power play wasn't really firing on all cylinders either but we found a way to get back into it. Obviously winning it in the shootout is a boost for us too."

Tyler Kennedy notched his second goal of the season to put the Penguins up, 3-2, at the eight-minute mark of the second period.

The Senators, however, responded with two quick goals at the end of the middle session to retake the lead. Spezza scored his second goal of the night with 5:40 left the frame, and then Dany Heatley scored on a power play just under two minutes later to give Ottawa a 4-3 advantage.

"We have to take something postive from this game and learn something from it." Spezza said. "We lost. We tried. If we score late instead of hitting posts and crossbar we win, 6-5, but it didn't go in for us. It goes that way sometimes."