That’s never an issue for Sidney Crosby, who followed the lead of his decidedly less-heralded teammates to establish a bit of order to the Pittsburgh Penguins’ first-round series with the New York Islanders.

Vokoun stopped 31 shots in his first postseason appearance in six years, Kennedy broke a scoreless tie with a sizzling breakaway and Crosby delivered another magical goal in a career stuffed with them. The Penguins beat the Islanders 4-0 in Game 5 to take a 3-2 lead in the best-of-seven series.

Kris Letang and Douglas Murray also scored for Pittsburgh, which finally looked like the team that rolled to the best record in the Eastern Conference during the regular season.

Game 6 is Saturday in New York. Another 60 minutes like the Penguins put together on Thursday and a Game 7 won’t be required.

“They played harder than us,” New York coach Jack Capuano said. “The better team won tonight. They deserved the hockey game.”

One the Penguins desperately needed after the Islanders evened the series 2-2 with a wild 6-4 victory in Game 4 that appeared to have the top seed reeling.

Pittsburgh coach Dan Bylsma grew so frustrated watching eighth-seeded New York overwhelm goaltender Marc-Andre Fleury that Bylsma benched the Stanley Cup winner — who had made 79 consecutive playoff starts — in favor of Vokoun, a 36-year-old journeyman who has never made it out of the first round of the postseason in his career.

Vokoun is three periods away now after shutting out the Islanders for the second time this season. Not bad for a guy starting his first playoff game since April 20, 2007, while playing for Nashville.

“I was a little bit nervous the whole day; you wouldn’t be human if you weren’t,” Vokoun said.

It didn’t look like it once the puck dropped. Vokoun didn’t budge when the Islanders dominated the first period, turning aside 14 shots in the first 20 minutes as the Penguins tried to gain their bearings with a new lineup designed to cut down New York’s speed advantage.

Though Bylsma’s biggest change was inserting Vokoun in place of Fleury, he also scratched defenseman Mark Eaton and forwards Jussi Jokinen and Tanner Glass in favor of younger, quicker skaters Simon Despres, Joe Vitale and Kennedy.

The moves paid off handsomely.

Kennedy, squeezed out of the rotation by the influx of veterans brought in at the trade deadline, gave the Penguins the confidence boost they needed 7:25 into the second period.

The play began innocently enough in Pittsburgh’s end before Letang hit Kennedy with a pinpoint 80-foot stretch pass right up the middle of the ice. Kennedy greedily accepted the puck at New York’s blue line, then flipped a wrist shot over Evgeni Nabokov’s glove to give Pittsburgh the lead.

The score seemed to rattle Nabokov. Murray loped in a lazy wrist shot from the point that Nabokov tried to glove only to have the puck slip out of his left hand, over his back and into the net.

There was nothing fluky about Crosby’s third goal of the series, a masterpiece that ranks among the more dazzling plays of his already highlight-heavy career.

The Pittsburgh captain, still wearing a cumbersome mask to protect his broken jaw, took a pass from teammate Jarome Iginla at center ice, then effortlessly split New York defenders Lubomir Visnovsky and Thomas Hickey. Crosby crossed the blue line and poked the puck ahead as the defensemen closed in, lifting his stick before stepping through a pair of flailing poke checks.

Nabokov didn’t have a chance as the wrist shot zipped over the goaltender’s stick to push the lead to 3-0.

There’s a statue outside Consol Energy Center commemorating a similar goal by Hall of Famer and team co-owner Mario Lemieux. The bronze sculpture shows Lemieux slicing through two Islanders defenders in 1988 on his way to the net.

Crosby downplayed any similarities.

“His was much nicer than mine,” Crosby said. “He went through guys and stickhandled through them and stickhandled around the goalie, too. I had a few less moves and a pretty basic shot, but I’ll take the goal anytime it goes in.”

The Islanders never recovered. While they kept Vokoun busy, he was rarely outnumbered as Pittsburgh cut down on the turnovers that led to a seemingly endless flurry of odd-man rushes by the Islanders in Games 2-4.

“We didn’t do a great job of helping Marc out,” Crosby said. “We wanted to make sure we did a better job in front of our goalie.”

When New York did manage to get deep, Vokoun didn’t falter and neither did the guys in front of him as the Penguins were able to develop a consistent rhythm for the first time since a 5-0 romp in Game 1.

Nabokov never located one and found himself on the bench when Letang scored on the power play 5:43 into the third period. Nabokov finished with 23 saves but spent the final 14:17 watching backup Kevin Poulin kept the Penguins off the board. The Islanders will get a chance to regroup at home on Saturday in their bid to win a playoff series for the first time in 20 years.

At least Game 5 is over. New York hasn’t won a Game 5 of any playoff series since 1988.

“For us it’s two Game 7s right now starting on Saturday,” New York defenseman Mark Streit said. “We’ve just got to concentrate on our game, what brought us in this situation and what makes us successful. We know we have it in the room. We’re a confident group.”

Game notes
New York played without D Andrew MacDonald, who is dealing with an upper-body injury. The Islanders also scratched F Marty Reasoner and D Matt Carkner among others … Kennedy’s goal was his sixth winning goal in the postseason, sixth most in Pittsburgh history.

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Not when Craig Anderson is guarding the goal.

Anderson made 48 saves, many of them spectacular, and the Ottawa Senators staged a third-period comeback to beat the Montreal Canadiens 4-2 in the opening game of the first playoff series between the geographic rivals.

The Canadiens set team playoff records with 27 shots in the second period and 50 overall. Wasn’t enough: Anderson outplayed Montreal goalie Carey Price, who stopped 27 shots at the other end.

“What can you say? Andy’s our MVP,” said defenseman Marc Methot, who scored the winning goal. “He’s a machine back there. He just keeps going and going. We’re lucky to have him in the net.”

The Canadiens will try to solve Anderson and the Senators in Game 2 on Friday night at the Bell Centre. But the hosts will be without one of their hottest forwards, center Lars Eller, who was wheeled off the ice on a stretcher bleeding heavily from the face and taken to hospital. He suffered a concussion, as well as fractures to his face and teeth, after an open-ice hit from Ottawa defenseman Eric Gryba.

Eller had taken an ill-considered pass up the middle from Raphael Diaz when he was flattened by Gryba with a hit the NHL is likely to review for further discipline. Gryba was given a major penalty for interference and a game misconduct.

“It was a hockey play,” said Ottawa coach Paul MacLean. “Our guy hit him, but player 61 (Diaz) is the guy to blame.”

“I can’t comment,” was all Montreal coach Michel Therrien said about the hit.

Brendan Gallagher scored during the resulting power play to put Montreal up 2-1. But the Senators’ league-best penalty killers then shut the door during a full two-minute, two-man advantage.

Jakob Silfverberg tied it with a shot that sailed between Price’s legs from the right circle 3:27 into the third period. Mathot swept a shot from the point into the top corner to put Ottawa ahead less than two minutes later.

Guillaume Latendresse, a former Canadien who was booed by most of the 21,273 in the seats, sealed the win with a goal that went in off his body as he drove to the net with 6:05 remaining.

Erik Karlsson scored in the first period for Ottawa, while Rene Bourque got one early in the second for Montreal.

“You just have to give your team an opportunity to stay in the game and win,” said Anderson, who led NHL goaltenders with a 1.69 goals-against average and a .941 save percentage this season, but likely won’t get the Vezina Trophy because he missed 20 games with an ankle injury.

“Montreal played a really good second period. They had a lot of momentum. Our penalty kill did a good job of finding a way to keep them to one goal and give us a chance to get back in the game. We went from having no momentum in the second and taking momentum back in the third.”

Therrien was impressed.

“We played a good game and we deserved a better result,” he said. “I’m proud of our team. We had 50 shots. We went to the net. But the story of the game was Anderson. He was extraordinary.”

Anderson was sharp as the Senators weathered a fierce Canadiens push in the first 10 minutes before Karlsson put on a show for the opening goal at 17:25.

The 2012 Norris Trophy winner, who returned late in the regular season from an injury to his Achilles tendon, skated through the neutral zone and worked a give-and-go with Kyle Turris, redirecting the return pass along the ice between Price’s pads.

Montreal tied the game when Bourque came out from behind the net and beat Anderson with a backhander under the crossbar on Montreal’s 34th shot of the game.

After the Gryba hit and with Ottawa down a man, Gallagher banged in Tomas Plekanec’s pass to put Montreal in the lead.

“I stepped up to make a hit. I kept my shoulder down. He received the puck by the time I hit him,” Gryba said. “I saw the replay. My elbow was down and there was no intent to hurt him whatsoever and I hope that he’s OK. I’m not out here to hurt anybody and it’s never good to seeing anything like that.

“I hope he makes a full and speedy recovery.”

Canadiens captain Brian Gionta said the quantity of shots was fine, and the quality was there some of the time, but his team needs to be sharper.

“We battled hard most of the game, but we’ve got to do a little better job of getting second and third opportunities,” Gionta said. “We had a lot of good chances, quality chances, but we’ve got to find a way to get those rebounds or a little more urgency in front of their net. He’s a good goalie and he’s going to make the first stop, for sure.”

Gryba’s hit came after Montreal’s P.K. Subban flattened Chris Neil with an open ice hit, but the Ottawa enforcer wasn’t injured on the play.

Game notes

Montreal’s 50 shots set a team record for a regulation playoff game. … The Canadiens are 50-28-2 all-time in playoff openers. Ottawa is 11-11. … Montreal sat out Jeff Halpern, Colby Armstrong, Davis Drewiske and Yannick Weber. … Peter Regin, Matt Kassian, Patrick Wiercioch and Andre Benoit were among Ottawa’s scratches. … The game was the first between Canadian teams in the playoffs since 2004. Ottawa met Toronto and Vancouver took on Calgary in the first round that season.

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