Penguins Blow 3rd Period Lead (Again) -- Lose Shootout to Rangers, 3-2

Well, what's good (bad) for the Penguins at home is also good (bad) for the Penguins on the road.

In an awful way to start a 4-game roadtrip, the Penguins 3 game winning streak ended today at the hands of the New York Rangers who came back from a 2-0 third period deficit to tie the game with 8 seconds left and then win it in a shootout, 3-2.

The Penguins were in command of the game on the strength of goals by Darryl Sydor and Sidney Crosby until the 3rd period when, much like games at home in the first few weeks of the season against New Jersey and Washington, they blew a lead. To make things worse, they were only 8 seconds away from gaining the 2 points on the division-leading Rangers until Nikoli Zherdev scored by getting a shot over Penguin netminder Marc-Andre Fleury's shoulder with just seconds to play.

In the shootout, Kris Letang, Petr Sykora and Sidney Crosby all came up empty. Of all people, Frederick Sjostrom scored for the Rangers on their 3rd attempt.

With that, the Rangers got 2 points and the Penguins got one.

It's hard to fault Fleury since the Rangers threw 44 shots on him in regulation and he stopped 42 of them. Still, the one Zherdev got past him is one he has to have.

Overall, it's just a tough way to lose.

I will say that it didn't seem the Penguins got much help from the zebras tonight. They had only 2 power plays, while the Rangers had the last 5 of the game. The lack of man advantage time helped the blueshirt cause, although Ranger goaltender Henrik Lundqvist played pretty well.

With the loss, the Penguins slipped back to 5 points behind New York.

More importantly, they lost a chance to keep their momentum going ... and lost, essentially, 3 points to the Rangers that could become critical as the season goes on. Together with the points the Penguins have left on the table in games against New Jersey and Washington, it adds up. And it's still October.

The Penguins face the Sharks next. They need to come up with a good effort against a strong San Jose club to get back on the winning side of the ledger.