Crosby, who turns 20 on Aug. 7, had three goals and two assists through the first three games of the series. The league’s youngest scoring leader ever with 120 points this season, Crosby totaled 222 points in his first two seasons with Pittsburgh.

“It was obviously a tough finish but I think we exceeded a lot of expectations in the regular season and we’ll have to learn from this,” Crosby said.

With a youthful lineup that included Fleury, rookie of the year favorite Evgeni Malkin, 18-year-old Jordan Staal and promising defenseman Ryan Whitney, the Penguins finished a surprising fifth in the Eastern Conference with 105 points, the second-highest season total in franchise history.

Bolstered by veterans Mark Recchi, Gary Roberts and Sergei Gonchar, Pittsburgh returned to the playoffs for the first time since 2001 — and ran into a Senators squad making its 10th straight run at the Stanley Cup.

“We had a fun year and we’ve really grown a lot together and had a great attitude all year,” said Recchi, won won his second Stanley Cup last season with Carolina. “This is a great learning process for us right now and I think the guys will remember this feeling for the summer and for next year when the playoffs start. We had 14 or 15 guys playing their first playoff round and next year it’s not going to be so foreign to them.”

The Penguins had three straight power plays to begin the game. Ottawa was penalized twice for delaying the game within the first 3:32 after Christoph Schubert repeated McAmmond’s mistake by clearing a puck over the glass in his zone.

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Outshot 7-0 midway through the first period, Ottawa recovered to close out the period with a 9-8 shots deficit before taking it to the Penguins by a 12-6 margin in the decisive second period.

Heatley opened the scoring on the Senators’ third power play of the game. He took Daniel Alfredsson’s pass and beat Fleury with a shot from the edge of the crease.

Vermette connected shortly after Ottawa finished killing Pittsburgh’s fourth power play, beating Fleury as he crashed into the goalie.

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Kelly made it 3-0 and Mike Comrie came close to putting the Senators up by four when he drove a slap shot off the right post with 1:15 remaining in the second period.

Notes: Penguins C Erik Christensen and RW Georges Laraque returned to the lineup. RWs Ronald Petrovicky and Nils Ekman joined Ds Joel Kwiatkowski and Alain Nasreddine and C Chris Thorburn as healthy scratches. ... Senators RW Patrick Eaves remained out of the lineup and is still recovering from Colby Armstrong’s check which knocked him out of Game 3 with an undisclosed head injury.

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