Malkin, Penguins dominate Lightning

Tampa Bay's first visit back to Pittsburgh since a Game 7 first-round series victory against the Penguins shows just how far the teams have come since that memorable April night.

A healthier looking Pittsburgh team has its MVP candidate back on the ice, unlike last season, and it showed as the Penguins doubled up Tampa Bay in a 4-2 victory on Sunday. The regulation loss was just the second for the Lightning in the past 11 games (7-2-2), but it meant a lost opportunity to move to within six points of the eighth and final playoff spot in the Eastern Conference standings.

"Every time you lose it's a waste of two points,'' said goaltender Mathieu Garon, who finished with 37 saves while suffering his first regulation loss since Jan. 15, also to Pittsburgh. "But we can't think too much about this one. We have to start winning again on Tuesday (against Ottawa). This could have been good for us but we didn't do the job for 60 minutes.''

Instead, Evgeni Malkin – who missed last season's playoff series with a knee injury – tormented Tampa Bay with a pair of goals while his line – with Chris Kunitz and James Neal – finished the game with three goals and eight points to erase an early Tampa Bay 2-0 lead with four unanswered goals. In three meetings with the Lightning this season, the Penguins have won twice while outshooting Tampa Bay 119-61.

"We didn't come out strong enough ... we didn't battle enough to deserve this game,'' said defenseman Victor Hedman, who played over 28 minutes while trying to match up against Malkin's line. "Their line, with Malkin, Kunitz and Neal, have been playing very well but I still think we could have done a much better job against them.''

Playing for the third time in four nights, and coming off a victory Saturday night in Buffalo, Tampa Bay looked like a team that got into town well after midnight playing against a Pittsburgh team that played a matinee contest on Saturday.

In their three regular-season visits to CONSOL Energy Center, the Lightning have arrived on the second half of back-to-back games and been outscored by a 17-4 margin in dropping all three.

But playing on consecutive nights was not going to be an excuse for head coach Guy Boucher, who was not pleased with the effort put forth throughout most of the game, even after a pair of Steve Downie goals 11 seconds apart game the Lightning a 2-0 lead just 10:09 into the game.

"We get the upper hand, but it wasn't a pretty (first) period,'' Boucher said. "In the second they came out with more than us and we were not able to respond.''

While Tampa Bay held a 2-1 leading heading into the second period, Kunitz spilt the defense in the opening minute of the second as Teddy Purcell, who assisted on both of Downie's goals, floated toward Malkin along the left boards. That left a gaping hole for Kunitz to skate in and beat Garon just 56 seconds into the period.

For the rest of the period, Tampa Bay lost too many battles in its own end, threw away too many pucks and spent too much time chasing as the Penguins outshot the Lightning 19-9 to take control of the game and never look in danger of giving it back.

"They turned it up and we stayed where we were in the first period,'' Boucher said.

It also left Tampa Bay in the same spot in the standings.