OTTAWA – Andrej Meszaros and Chris Kelly scored 5:01 apart early in the first period and the Ottawa Senators ruined Sidney Crosby’s playoff debut with a 6-3 win over the Pittsburgh Penguins on Wednesday night in the opening game of the Eastern Conference first-round series.

Tom Preissing made it 3-0 with a power-play goal 14:38 into second after Ottawa scored twice on Marc-Andre Fleury in the opening period when the Senators had a 16-4 shots advantage. The 19-year-old Crosby, who led the NHL with 120 points, scored the game’s final goal at 19:11 for his first playoff point. He also had a goal waved off 37 seconds into the third after Dany Heatley put Ottawa up 4-1 with a power-play goal 28 seconds earlier.

Chris Neil and Mike Comrie added third-period goals, and Ray Emery stopped 23 shots for Ottawa, which went 31-7-8 from Dec. 23 to the end of the season.

Jordan Staal and Sergei Gonchar scored for Pittsburgh, which played its first playoff game since 2001.

Game 2 of the best-of-seven series is Saturday in Ottawa.

Along with Crosby, Staal and Fleury, Evgeni Malkin was one of 13 Penguins who played their first career playoff game. Penguins owner Mario Lemieux looking on from a luxury box as Ottawa jumped on his young team.

Meszaros opened the scoring 1:37 in when he put a shot from the high slot into an open net as Fleury lay sprawled on the ice. Kelly made it 2-0 at 6:38, beating Fleury after taking the puck from defenseman Mark Eaton, who was on his knees after blocking Joe Corvo’s shot.

Corvo got his second assist on Preissing’s power-play goal in the second before Staal gave Pittsburgh some hope with 3:02 remaining in the third. He slipped a puck inside the right post to make it 3-1 after Emery was unable to cover up a loose puck.

Crosby, booed sporadically by the sellout crowd of 19,611, drew cheers when he was penalized for hooking late in the second. Heatley, the first player to reach 50 goals in consecutive seasons since Florida’s Pavel Bure in 2000 and 2001, scored early in the third with 2 seconds remaining in Crosby’s penalty.

Sharks 5, Predators 4

NASHVILLE, Tenn. – Patrick Rissmiller scored at 11:46 of the second overtime, and the San Jose Sharks beat the Nashville Predators 5-4 Wednesday night after blowing a two-goal lead in the opening game of the Western Conference first-round series.

Rissmiller, who scored only seven goals in the regular season, beat Tomas Vokoun with a shot from the edge of the left circle after taking a crisp pass from Patrick Marleau.

San Jose squandered a 4-2 lead after two periods, an advantage built with three goals in the middle frame after the Sharks lost top goal scorer Jonathan Cheechoo to an injured right knee. But the Predators, who stood atop the NHL until March 29 before slipping to the West’s No. 4 seed, scored twice in the final 6:55 of regulation to force the first overtime in the franchise’s short postseason history.