The Ottawa Citizen du lieu suivant : Ottawa, Ontario, Canada • 18

BREAKING NEWS AT 0 0 PLAY0I1 B4 THE OTTAWA CITIZEN Pamzeri: Regin's goal forces overtime GAME FILE CONTINUED FROM Bl wmmmmf rjt'r ft CM niirf" I Continued from PAGE Bl Sidney Crosby finally gave the Penguins a 3-2 lead at 9:01 of the second, about six minutes after a goal by Kunitz was disallowed because it had been tipped in by a high stick. "I just crashed the net and was able to get my stick on it," said Crosby. But Peter Regin scored his team-high third goal of the playoffs just 1:23 later to tie the game and ultimately send it into overtime. Pascal Leclaire, in his first start since the last game of the regular season, did what the Senators wanted him to do: Give them a chance. He faced 42 shots in regulation, while Marc-Andre1 Fluery faced 23 in regulatioa The Senators got the start they wanted and jumped to a 2-0 lead with goals 1:08 apart halfway through the first period.

With Mike Rupp off for roughing, Erik Karlsson drifted a shot toward the net from the right boards and Fisher deflected it past Fleury. Then, at 11:33, thanks to hard work from Nick Foligno, who dug out the puck from behind the Pittsburgh net and got it out front, Ruutu put it between Fluery's legs for a 2-0 lead. At this point, Pittsburgh coach Dan Bylsma called a timeout and used it for a vigorous lecture. It worked. The Penguins played much better for the rest of the period, while the Senators suddenly started playing worse, turning the puck over and over again in the neutral zone.

It caught up with them with about two minutes left, when, trapped in their zone with the Penguins buzzing around Leclaire, Chris Phillips was called for cross-checking- In retrospect, Clouston is probably wishing he used his timeout to settle his players. But he didn't, the scrambling continued, and 14 seconds into the power play, Letang put one1 in high on Leclaire's stick side. The Senators got themselves in deeper when Phillips got another minor, this one for tripping, with seconds left in the period. But the Senators got out of this jam with some adept penalty killing in the first two minutes of the second period. Eventually, however, they couldn't hold the Penguins off.

The Senators were on their heels for the entire period, except for brief moments unable to get the puck out of their zone, and except for brief moments unable to keep it in the Pittsburgh zone. They were on a mad scramble for almost the entire 20 minutes, getting only five shots themselves. Pittsburgh had 19 shots on Leclaire, who played a heroic period, and finally tied the game on a goal that had to be reviewed. The initial call by referee Brian Pochmara was that the goal, scored by Kunitz with a couple of sharp swipes at it on the right post, wasn't good because the net had been lifted off its moorings. But a review indicated that, in fact, the net was only partially lifted.

It has to be fully off for the a goal to be disallowed. With the Penguins ahead 3-2 and in cruise control toward a series victory, the crowd behind the Penguins in celebration mode, Fedotenko made the costly giveaway which led to Regin's tying goal in the third period. OVERTIME PART III Seconds in, the Penguins throw a puck thorugh the crease. At the 2:30 mark, Nick Foligno beat Fleury, but the puck sailed centimetres high. OVERTIME PART II Evgeni Malkin hit the post five minutes in and seconds later, Peter Regin's attempt to tuck the puck behind Fleury missed by centimetres.

Leclaire slid across the crease to rob Malkin following a nice set up by Pascal Dupuis. Erik Karlsson almost finished it off, joining the rush with four minutes left. OVERTIME PART I Twenty seconds in, Matt Cullen missed the net on a 2-on-l break. On the next shift, Fleury robbed Chris Neil with a pad save. On the ensuing shift, Foligno did put the puck in with his skate.

Leclaire's best stop was with his pad, off Alex Goligosky. DANISH DELIGHT The Penguins and their fans thought it was over midway through the third. Regin didn't. His third of the series tied the game 3-3, stopping Pittsburgh's victory party in its tracks midway through the third period. LEARNING EXPERIENCE Impossible spot for a 19-year-old, defending against Malkin and Sidney Crosby, but Karlsson gave the puck away once and failed to clear it twice, leading to the Crosby goal which gave the Penguins a 3-2 lead.

AN OFFICIAL'S NIGHTMARE The men in stripes had an awful night. The double minor penalty to Mike Fisher for being pushed into Brooks Orpik by Fleury was ridiculous. Why is Orpik allowed to twice cross-check Cullen from behind with no penalty? KrisLetang's non-tripping call on Cullen in overtime was the wrong one. Then again, everything goes uncalled in OT. ONTMEWEB We've got the Senators' Game 5 against the Pittsburgh Penguins, on Thursday night covered at ottawacitizen.comsports Get Twitter updates all day Get all the postgame coverage, including stories and photo galleries Send us your fan photos to Check out our Sens game galleries at ottawacitizen.comsensphotos -1 rzT ZJj rr 1 1 L- 1 1 -v, -7 JUSTIN K.

ALLER, GETTY IMAGES SCENES FROM A GAME 5 Clockwise, from the top: The Penguins' Chris Kunitz knocks the Senators' Chris Kelly off his skates beside goalie Marc-Andre" Fleury; Pittsburgh's Jordan Staal crashes into Ottawa's Pascal Leclaire, earning a two-minute penalty for goaltender interference; the puck whistles over the head of Senators goaltender Pascal Leclaire; and Fleury gets over in time to block a shot from the stick of Ottawa's Jesse Winchester. Sens look to next season and put Leclaire in goal i 1 jp wt- 1 1 mm The goaltending decision clearly looks like a Bryan Murray move with one goalie to make in Joio-n and the other to pull in $900,000, reports ALLEN PANZERI. kept throwing him in when he was giving up bad goal after bad goal and losing games. Finally, on Thursday, Clouston acknowledged what everyone has known for four games: "We feel that, obviously, that Brian has struggled." All of this will make for an interesting training camp. No other team will take Leclaire and his big salary and Elliott also has another year and $900,000 on his contract.

So they'll fight it out in September, and they'll have competition from 18-year-old Swedish goalie Robin Lehner, the team's second-round choice (46th overall) in last June's draft. Lehner, who turns 19 on July 24, played two games in the American Hockey League with Binghamton after his Ontario Hockey League season in Sault Ste. Marie ended, and he won both of them. Goalies usually take longer to develop than skaters, but in a long string of goalies-of-the-future, Lehner's the next one in a city that gobbles them up. VOLCHENKOV'S CONTRACT As contract negotiations continue with 28-year-old defenceman Anton Volchenkov, Murray has to be thinking about his next move.

Going into Game 5, Volchenkov had not had a good series. He had looked old and slow, like a lot of his teammates. He was minus-3 with one assist, seven hits and 15 blocked shots. What Volchenkov was asking for would make him the team's highest-paid defenceman, which Murray obviously can't do. Maybe it's even time to let Volchenkov test the free-agent market.

i That would hardly be the thought the Senators would want him to carry through the summer and into next season, that his only future in Ottawa is as a backup. Financially, that's as much a waste of money as having to pay Dany Heatley's $4-million signing bonus last summer. So, with nothing to lose in a playoff series the Senators trailed 3-1, the best choice for the future was to put Leclaire in and begin the process of restoring his confidence, as well as the team's confidence in him. There's not much debate that Leclaire's best game is better than Elliott's best game. It's just that, for a variety of reasons, mainly the injuries he has suffered this season, Leclaire's best has rarely been seen.

It must have been a tough choice for Clouston, who did little to disguise that Elliott was his No. 1 goalie over the last half of the season, and that he clearly had no confidence in Leclaire. Even if Murray's influence carried this decision, the question still might be whether Clouston waited too long to make the switch to Leclaire? Elliott wasn't even very good in Game 1, but was lucky because Marc-Andre Fleury was worse and the Senators won 5-4. Surely the Senators didn't think they were going to win every game 5-4. It seems incredible that they it PITTSBURGH The choice of Pascal Leclaire to play Game 5 against the Pittsburgh Penguins had nothing to do with the hope he would give the Ottawa Senators a better chance to win the game.

It had everything to do with next season. It also had general manager Bryan Murray's fingerprints all over it. At the very least, Murray whispered in coach Cory Clouston's ear that it would please him very much if Leclaire were to start. Coaches think only about winning the next game, while general managers think about the future. And it's all about money.

Leclaire is due to make $4.8 million US. (with a cap hit) next season. If he wasn't selected to play Game 5 after Brian Elliott was given four games and had to be lifted from the fourth, it would have sent a crushing message to Leclaire that the Senators had absolutely no faith in his skills. PETER DIANA. PITTSBURGH POST-GAZETTE Senators' Mike Fisher leaps for joy after the puck finds its way across the goal-line past Penguins goalie Marc-Andre1 Fleury in overtime..