Live blog: Sidney Crosby completes hat trick for 4-1 Pens' lead

Sidney Crosby scored his third goal of the game - an empty-netter -- to put the Penguins up 4-1 with 2:01 remaining.

Mike Rupp's goal 1:54 into the third period has cut the Penguins lead.

Rupp whipped a left circle wrist shot over Penguins goaltender Dany Sabourin's left shoulder for his second goal of the season.

Not sure what Rupp did to deserve a penalty there. At least initially, it looked like a double-leg takedown by Sidney Crosby on Rupp at 2:32.

Crosby has two goals in the game.

The Devils are playing pretty well in the third period. They've controlled play for much of the last five minutes. If they can get another goal, that would make it interesting.

This power play is a big one for the Devils. This is their chance to make a game of it.

It looks like Dainius Zubrus, who was battling the stomach flu today, is done for the night. Brent Sutter had Sheldon Brookbank out with Patirk Elias and Brian Gionta just before the delay of game penalty and then had Barry Tallackson out with the second power play unit.

If I were Sutter, I'd put Elias at center and play him with Zach Parise and Gionta right now. Sometimes the all-the-eggs-in-one-basket approach works. At this is the time to do it with Zubrus out.

***

Ex-Devil Petr Sykora finished off some terrific passing from Tyler Kennedy and Sidney Crosby for a power-play goal at 7:26 of the second period and Crosby added a 4-on-4 goal at 11:29 to up the Penguins lead to 3-0 after two periods.

On Sykora's goal, Evgeni Malkin did a great job of keeping the puck in at the blue line. Then Kennedy made a great backhand feed past Colin White to Crosby in the right circle. That left Johnny Oduya as the lone Devils defender down low. Crosby sent an elevated pass over Oduya's stick to Sykora, who was alone at the left post for the tap-in.

Crosby made it 3-0 with his second goal of the night after a horrendous giveaway by Barry Tallackson to Malkin in the Devils' zone. Scott Clemmensen got aggressive and came way out on Malkin, who swatted the puck over to Crosby for the easy goal -his ninth in the last nine games.

I imagine we probably won't see Tallackson again in this game.

I guess I was wrong, Tallackson just had another shift and got off a good shot from the right circle that Dany Sabourin made a stick save on.

That was some stickhandling by Malkin when he came down one-on-one on Martin with 1:54 left in the second. He flipped the puck up to try to get it over Martin's stick and then batted it down and Clemmensen made a pad save on the bouncing puck. I'm not sure if it would have counted if it went in. It looked like Malkin batted the puck down with a high stick. It was still very impressive.

Then, Travis Zajac nearly got the Devils on the board by redirecting a pass from Zach Parise off the right post with 1:40 left in the period.

Crosby also scored a dazzling goal just 1:21 into the game to give the Penguins a 1-0 lead.

Matt Cooke sent Zach Parise into the Devils' bench at 9:38. Jamie Langenbrunner quickly jumped Cooke and Patrik Elias was there too.

The fourth line had a rare shift (it had only one in the first period) and Barry Tallackson and Sheldon Brookbank stirred things up in front.

Clemmensen has settled down nicely since his early-game problems.

***

On his first goal goal, Crosby split between Devils defenseman Bryce Salvador and Paul Martin on the right side before cutting to the net. Devils goaltender Scott Clemmensen appeared to break up the play by poke-checking the puck off Crosby's stick, but Crosby regained it and surprised Clemmensen by spinning around and throwing the puck on net on his backhand. The puck appeared to go in off Clemmensen's blocker hand.

That goal seemed to shake Clemmensen up a little. He does not look sharp right now. but the Devils survived that early Penguins' power play.

Bryce Salvador is having a tough night already with Crosby, who just had another mini break. Clemmensen made a right pad save, though, with 12:36 reamaining in the first.

Alex Goligoski came very close to making it 2-0 at 8:50 when his shot from the left point hit the crossbar.

Crosby is really flying tonight. He just schooled Anssi Salmela with a spinaround move in the right circle before throwin a backhand on net. Clemmensen, who has settled down now after that first goal, was there to make the right arm save.

The Penguins outshot the Devils, 16-12, in the first period.

***

The starting lineups for tonight's game between the Devils and the Pittsburgh Penguins at Mellon Arena.

Dainius Zubrus is in the lineup for the Devils.

DEVILS

Forwards:Zach Parise-Travis Zajac-Jamie Langenbrunner. Defensemen: Colin White-Johnny Oduya. Goaltender: Scott Clemmensen,

PENGUINS

Forwards: Matt Cooke-Jordan Staal-Tyler Kennedy. Defensemen: Hal Gill-Rob Scuderi,  Goaltender: Dany Sabourin.

***

Devils center Dainius Zubrus is on the ice for warm-ups for tonight's game against the Pittsburgh Penguins, so it looks like he will play.

It will be interesting to see what line Devils coach Brent Sutter chooses to play against Sidney Crosby's line. The Penguins have been using Crosby and Evgeni Malkin on the same line from time to time, but have started a lot of games with them apart.

Dany Sabourin will start in net for the Penguins.

Here is the Devils' expected lineup for tonight.

Forwards: Zach Parise-Travis Zajac-Jamie Langenbrunner; Patrik Elias-Dainius Zubrus-Brian Gionta; Jay Pandolfo-Mike Rupp-David Clarkson; Barry Tallackson-Petr Vrana-Sheldon Brookbank.

Defensemen: Bryce Salvador-Paul Martin; Colin White-Johnny Oduya; Anssi Salmela-Mike Mottau.

Goaltender: Scott Clemmensen.

Comments

[Jeff]

Glad to see Zubie playing now let's hope this bug doesn't hurt his play we need his puck control tonight.

[rico]

should be interesting...first offensively gifted team we faced in awhile....not a good start

[Mike]

Ugh, that was embarrassing clemmer.

[Brodeur30]

That's one of the weakest goals you'll ever seen.

Terrible Clemmer....Bounce back

[Brodeur30]

This team looks terrible right now...

Gliding around and watching the Pens skate around us..We're lucky it's only 1-0

[Puckster]

I wouldn't call that a highlight goal. It was kind of sloppy.

[Robbie]

TG how's the ice?

[Steve]

looks like the Devils had too much turkey

[Tom Gulitti]

Sometimes you have to give the guy on the other team some credit. Yes, the Devils didn't play it well, but Crosby was flying on that play and I'm sure you'll see it on all the highlights tonight.

[Shari]

For a good part of the first, the Pens were out hustling the Dev's, They made Them look one step behind. They could have been blown out, They seemed to settle down a bit toward the end. Watching anyone skate around Our top 2 D is scary, Your right TG, Sal has his hands full thats for sure. Where's Dog when You need him?

[Tom Gulitti]

I should have mentioned that Martin didn't have a great first period either.

[Shari]

Of course that will be on every highlight known to Man, if Crosby so much as sneezes it ends up on a highlight reel.

[Puckster]

Crosby made a nice play to get to the net. Then he lost control of the puck and just got lucky. It wasn't that spectacular of a play.

[Brodeur30]

TG...

Yes, you do have to give credit to crosby for splitting Sal and Martin, but the reality of it is that it was a weak backhander on the ice that would've have even hit the net had it not deflected in off Clemmer's blocker. Good play by him to get the shot off, but Clemmer made him look good.

[Brodeur30]

That should read "wouldn't have even hit the net"

[Robbie]

First period is behind us. Lets move on to the second and hope they step their game up

[Jeff]

At least we are only down 1-0 it could be worse let's hope we pick it up in the 2nd and get some goals

[Tom Gulitti]

Not letting Clemmensen off the hook, but how many guys in this league do you think would have scored that goal?

Not many.

That he regained the puck so quickly (probably lucky) and spun around to surprise Clemmensen was part of the brilliance of play.

[Shari]

Come on Boys, get em in the second.

[Brodeur30]

We're just not generating many chances...

Don't look very cohesive as a whole tonight..Someone needs to step up and make a play or throw a big hit to energize this team..

[Robbie]

Throw a big hit? Where Janssen when you need him

[Puckster]

Now, that's a highlight film goal. Ugh.

[Brodeur30]

Nice pass by Sid to sykora.

We're playing with the big boys tonight Devs. Way to show up....

Nice flop by pesonen.

[Puckster]

My last point on the first goal.

Crosby made a nice move to get to the net, but the goal itself was weak. Anybody can throw a sloppy backhand on goal that takes a bad bounce off an out of position goalie and goes awkwardly into the net. It's the kind of goal I'd expect from a fourth line banger (except for Crosby splitting the D of course).

[Jeff]

Ok we suck again!