PITTSBURGH – Sidney Crosby and Erik Christensen each scored two goals to lead the Pittsburgh Penguins to a 5-2 victory over the New York Islanders.

Christensen added an assist, and Michel Ouellet had a goal and an assist for Pittsburgh, who passed the Islanders and moved into third place in the Atlantic Division with their second straight win.

Richard Park and Arron Asham scored for New York.

Crosby, who had no shots and a minus-1 rating through two periods, had two goals in the third period on rebounds. His power-play goal with 16:32 left off Ouellet’s shot gave the Penguins a 3-2 lead. Crosby’s second on a rebound of Mark Recchi’s shot with 6:15 left put the game away.

Christensen scored the game’s first goal 2:32 in with a nifty backhand move from the slot on a pass from Maxime Talbot.

The second period was all New York. Not only did the Islanders kill two 5-on-3 Pittsburgh power plays – totaling 2:24 in the second period – they actually outscored the Penguins during the disadvantage.

Richard Park scored a rare 3-on-5 goal less than two minutes into the period. With Alexei Yashin and Brendan Witt in the penalty box, Park blocked a shot and skated up ice. He beat Pittsburgh Marc-Andre Fleury to the high stick side to tie it 1-1.

It was the first goal the Islanders had scored while down two men since March 9, 1993, when Benoit Hogue did it against Philadelphia.

The Penguins took a 2-1 lead on Ouellet’s power-play goal 11:35 into the period, but Asham beat Fleury to tie it at 2 with 2:16 to play in the second off a pass from Chris Simon.

New York controlled play for much of the first two periods. After posting six shots during the first 3:54, the Penguins went 18:15 without a shot and totaled only four during the next 39-plus minutes – despite an abundance of power-play time.

But Pittsburgh got the better of the play in the third period, firing 12 shots and scoring all three goals.

Christensen’s second came with 11:15 to play when he fired a shot from just inside the blue line, using two Islanders as a screen. That gave the Penguins a 4-2 lead.

Notes: The Penguins killed 3:19 of New York power play time midway through the first period after Ryan Malone and Ryan Whitney were penalized for retaliating on Brendan Witt for a hit on Crosby. The crowd of 16,958 was the Penguins’ seventh consecutive sellout. Viktor Kozlov, who has five points against the Penguins this season, had a five-game point streak snapped. Islanders D Radek Martinek played his first game since Dec. 27 due to a broken foot.

AP-ES-01-16-07 2155EST

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