“No excuses:” Penguins say they need to do better against Senators in Game 4

OTTAWA — Matt Cullen could hardly find the words to describe the Pittsburgh Penguins’ performance Wednesday night in a 5-1 loss to the Ottawa Senators.

With the win the Senators took a 2-1 series lead in the best-of-seven Eastern Conference Final. Game 4 is Friday in Ottawa.

“Bottom line is there’s no excuses here, we all know it, we didn’t play well,” said Cullen. “To be able to say that right now in the conference finals is pretty hard to stomach.”

The Senators jumped out to a 4-0 first-period lead by the 12:52 mark and never looked back.

Sidney Crosby broke Craig Anderson’s shutout bid scoring a third-period power-play goal. It was Crosby’s first point of the series.

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“It was a bad start,” said Crosby. “You don’t want to get down at any point, but to get down 4-0 is digging a pretty big hole.”

Crosby and the Penguins don’t need to look far for experience on how to bounce back. They did just that in the conference semifinal against Washington after losing Game 6 and went on to win Game 7.

“You’ve got to learn from it either way, however way it shakes out whether you lose in double overtime or have the kind of game we had,” said Crosby. “You have to learn from it. We have to find another level here.”

Marc-Andre Fleury, who’s been impressive through Pittsburgh’s playoff run, was chased from Game 3 after allowing the four first-period goals.

He was replaced by Murray, who made his first appearance in goal since April 6.

Murray looked solid allowing one goal on 20 shots.

Fleury has no idea whether or not he’ll start Friday, but is hopeful to get the start.

“We knew they were going to come out hard and that’s what they did,” Fleury said. “They scored one and took the momentum and got the crowd in it and then had some favourable bounces and that was the difference.”

Sullivan said he hasn’t given any thought to his starting goalie. He just knows his team needs to do better in Game 4.

“I just think we’ve got to be more ready to play from the drop of the puck,” said Sullivan. “I think when you give up a goal that early in the game against a team that’s playing at home it gives that team a lot of energy. I think we have to be ready right from the start of the puck and we simply have to be better.”

Lisa Wallace, The Canadian Press