Crosby leads Pens to rout of Coyotes

Jan 28, 2007, 5:20 GMT

Phoenix, AZ - Sidney Crosby and Mark Recchi each had a goal and three assists, sparking the Pittsburgh Penguins' 7-2 rout of the Phoenix Coyotes at Jobing.com Arena.

Ryan Malone, Maxime Talbot, Ray Whitney, Jarkko Ruutu and Ronald Petrovicky also tallied for the Penguins, who have won six of their last seven games. Jocelyn Thibault stopped 22-of-24 shots manning the pipes.

Shane Doan and Steven Reinprecht scored for the Coyotes, who had their two- game winning streak snapped. Mikael Tellqvist surrendered all seven goals on 32 shots.

Crosby set up the game's first goal, just 24 seconds into the opening period. On the play, Recchi moved the puck deep into the Phoenix zone, where Crosby nabbed the disc in the corner and dished to Malone in the slot. The left winger then one-timed a snapshot past Tellqvist for the 1-0 edge.

At 11:12, Pens' forward Colby Armstrong was whistled for delay-of-game after his clearing attempt sailed over the glass in his own zone, giving Phoenix a 5-on-3 advantage for 43 seconds. The Coyotes quickly made the most of the opportunity, as Doan, camped off the right side of the net, accepted a feed from Ladislav Nagy that skimmed the goal mouth, banging the puck into the empty net to tie the game at 1-1 at 11:36.

Pittsburgh reclaimed the lead less than two minutes later, however, as Talbot's wrist shot from the point squeezed through traffic in front of the net and past the out-stretched glove of Tellqvist for a 2-1 margin at 13:32.

Phoenix evened things up again in the middle stanza, as a battle in front of the Pittsburgh crease sent a loose puck up ice, where Reinprecht rifled it into the goal at 10:37.

The Pens netted the next two goals, however, to take a 4-2 lead into the final period.

The first came on the power play, as Whitney accepted a cross-ice feed from Crosby in the right circle, firing a one-timer past a sliding Tellqvist at 13:16.

Then, a little more than four minutes ticked off the clock before Ruutu flipped a wrist shot from the right circle that found the five-hole of the netminder.

There was no slowing the Pens' offense in the third, as Crosby continued the rout with a nifty goal at 4:48 to make it 5-2. The star forward simply would not be denied, as he spun around, maintained control of the puck, and slipped a backhand shot into the net while falling to the ice.

Petrovicky then joined in the onslaught, as the puck caromed off the board and found the blade of his stick, and he finished the play by firing the disc into the wide open net.

Recchi capped the scoring with a power play marker at 12:16. The goal was his 17th of the season and 501st of his NHL career.

Game Notes

Pittsburgh went 3-for-6 on the power play, while Phoenix finished 1- for-6.

The two teams met for the first time in nearly three years. The Penguins and Coyotes hadn't played since Pittsburgh won 4-3 on February 25, 2004, its first-ever win in Phoenix.

Crosby has four goals and nine assists during a six-game points streak, and eight goals and 15 assists in his last 12 games.

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