“I’m not talking about anything ahead of Game 5,” the Pittsburgh captain said when asked about a potential Eastern Conference final against the Boston Bruins.

But after the Penguins’ 7-3 victory Wednesday night, it’s hard to imagine Crosby and his teammates aren’t starting to think about facing the Bruins, who are up 3-0 over the New York Rangers.

Jarome Iginla and James Neal each scored twice, Crosby, Chris Kunitz and Pascal Dupuis added goals, and Tomas Vokoun made 30 saves. Down 2-1 after the first period, the Penguins scored twice in a 40-second span early in the second and added four goals in the first 10 minutes of the third.

Milan Michalek, Kyle Turris and Daniel Alfredsson scored for Ottawa. Senators goalie Craig Anderson was benched after Pittsburgh’s sixth goal, and Robin Lehner finished the game.

“There was a sense like, ‘OK, this might take as many shots as we can muster to break this guy.’ And fortunately, we kept on that mindset,” Penguins coach Dan Bylsma said. “It was a matter of, ‘We are going to have to fire anything and everything we can at this guy to get one by him.'”

Game 5 is Friday night in Pittsburgh.

“I know what we’re going to do,” Alfredsson said. “We’re going to go out and play one hell of a game. That doesn’t worry me at all. We never quit and that’s not going to stop now. We know the odds are against us in every way, but we never quit and that’s going to continue.”

But Alfredsson also conceded that the Senators faced long odds of rallying against the top-seeded Penguins.

“Probably not,” Alfredsson said, according to NHL.com. “[Pittsburgh’s] depth and our play right now … it doesn’t look too good.

“When you look at what we did, it wasn’t good enough. Does that mean [Pittsburgh] was good? Did we make them good? Who really cares? From our point of view, we didn’t manage the puck [well], we didn’t execute our passes, and subsequently, we got punished in the neutral zone. We turned way too many pucks over and gave them some freebies. It would have been nice to have the lead for a little bit longer, but now we’re back on our heels again. We didn’t shut them down when it matters.”

The 40-year-old captain was seen retrieving the puck at the end of the game, NHL.com reported, but Alfredsson insisted that the puck was a memento for his family and not a sign that he was considering retirement at season’s end.

Senators coach Paul MacLean didn’t take a single question after the game. Instead, he held up the scoresheet and said: “I think everything’s right here. It’s 7-3. See you in Pittsburgh. We’re going to Pittsburgh and we’re coming to play. Have a good night.”

The Senators, coming off a double-overtime victory Sunday night in Game 3, opened the scoring on Michalek’s short-handed goal at 2:29 of the first period. With defenseman Sergei Gonchar in the penalty box, Alfredsson fed the puck up the middle to a streaking Michalek, who broke through the defense and beat Vokoun low on the glove side for Ottawa’s second short-handed goal of the series.

It was the Senators’ first lead of the series. It wouldn’t last.

Neal tied it with 5:04 left in the period, picking up the loose puck in the slot and putting it in the back of the net. Turris put Ottawa back in front off a rebound with 3:45 left in the first.

Pittsburgh tied it early in the second when Kunitz got behind the defense and went in alone to beat Anderson. Less than a minute later, Anderson gave up a rebound on Kris Letang’s shot that landed on the tape of Iginla’s stick to make it 3-2.

Neal started the third-period flurry with a power-play goal at 1:59. Dupuis added a short-handed goal at 8:07, Crosby followed at 8:39, and Iginla scored on a power play at 9:53.

Alfredsson finished the scoring with a late power-play goal for his 100th career playoff point.

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“I wanted it so bad,” Fleury said. “I tried to not jinx it. I was touching wood, but yeah I was looking forward to getting it finally.”

The reeling Rangers offered little resistance.

Fleury stopped 23 shots for his 23rd shutout — one more than Tom Barrasso — and the Penguins beat New York 3-0 for their eighth straight victory.

Beau Bennett, Pascal Dupuis and Tyler Kennedy scored, and Dustin Jeffrey added two assists as the Penguins continued to dominate the series.

Pittsburgh has won seven consecutive meetings with New York, which lost for the fourth time in its last five games. Henrik Lundqvist made 24 saves for the Rangers, but New York failed to score for the third time this season. The Rangers, the best team in the Eastern Conference last spring, trail Pittsburgh by 14 points with six weeks left in the regular season and currently find themselves on the outside of the playoff picture looking in.

“It’s gut check time pretty much,” New York defenseman Dan Girardi said. “We’ve got to figure out what’s going on here and play with some serious desperation. We’re falling in the standings here.”

The Penguins continued to head in the opposite direction. Pittsburgh is in firm control of the Atlantic Division and in a race with Boston and Montreal for the conference’s best record thanks in part to a suddenly responsible defense.

The league’s most potent attack has a tendency to get a little loose with the puck from time to time, flubbing away turnovers that frequently put Fleury and backup Tomas Vokoun into tight spots. Those problems have disappeared in the last week. Pittsburgh has given up only four goals in its last four games and Fleury insists it’s not just by accident.

“For a while there we gave up a lot of goals but I think everybody kind of tightened up and we’re more conscious of our defensive zone, guys blocking shots and coming back in the zone to help out,” he said. “It’s been great for us.”

Fleury has been pretty good in his own right. The No. 1 overall pick in the 2003 NHL draft is 10-1 in his last 11 decisions and has back-to-back shutouts against the Rangers.

Then again, the Rangers hardly put up much of a fight. New York didn’t record a shot for the game’s first 10 minutes and save for a brief burst at the start of the second period spent most of the game on its heels while losing its third straight. The Rangers have scored just two goals during the skid.

“I thought today we were in mud, we really struggled, but we righted the ship,” New York coach John Tortorella said. “I thought we played a good second period. I thought we were in a good spot going into the third period.”

Not for long. Kennedy drew a tripping penalty from New York’s Anton Stralman then cashed in a minute later when he rocketed a one-timer from the left circle past Lundqvist.

Less than 60 seconds later it was 3-0 as Dupuis scored his 14th of the season. The Penguins clamped down over the final 12 minutes, the only drama surrounding Fleury’s pursuit of the shutout mark. New York only really came close to scoring once, when a Carl Hagelin wrist shot knuckled off Fleury’s midsection, fell to the ice and laid tantalizingly close to the goal line. Fleury managed to put his glove on it before it could trickle into the net.

“I think you need a little bit of good bounces here and there to get a shutout and definitely tonight that was a good one there,” Fleury said.

The Rangers spoke openly before the game about the need to get off to a strong start to offset disappointing losses Buffalo and Winnipeg. It didn’t happen.

Bennett gave the Penguins a 1-0 lead barely 90 seconds in, taking a nifty tap pass off the boards from Jeffrey and blistering a slap shot from right circle over Lundqvist’s shoulder. Only brilliant play from the New York goalie prevented things from getting any worse for the Rangers, who needed more than 10 minutes to get off a shot and spent most of the first 20 minutes in a general malaise.

“We wanted to have a big first period and get some energy and … we ended up watching them play in our own end,” Girardi said.

It happened all too often on a day the Penguins showcased how wide the gap between two teams with Stanley Cup expectations is at the moment.

“That’s why (the Penguins are) where they’re at right now,” Tortorella said. “They seize those opportunities and they make a couple of big plays and we haven’t gotten to our identity consistent enough.”

Game notes

Penguins C Evgeni Malkin did not skate on Saturday and he remains out with an undisclosed upper-body injury. Coach Dan Bylsma says there is no timetable on Malkin’s return. The reigning NHL MVP has missed the last four games and eight of Pittsburgh’s last 11 … Pittsburgh hosts the Boston Bruins on Sunday. The Rangers are off until Monday when they host Carolina. … The Rangers scratched D Stu Bickel and Matt Gilroy while the Penguins scratched D Deryk Engelland and Roberto Bortuzzo along with Malkin.

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Matt Moulson scored a goal and assisted on another, Evgeni Nabokov stopped 37 shots, and the Islanders dominated listless Pittsburgh 4-1 on Tuesday night.

John Tavares scored for the second straight game for New York while Michael Grabner collected his fourth goal of the season and Casey Cizikas found the net for the first time in his career.

“I don’t consider any win easy but we came out and played the game we wanted to play, and I think we didn’t make the game easy for them,” Tavares said.

The Islanders have won three straight against the Penguins dating back to last season, their longest winning streak in the series in more than five years.

Two of those victories have come on the road, something New York hadn’t done in Pittsburgh since 2002.

While the Islanders aren’t getting too far ahead of themselves just six games into the season, the way they dominated a team considered a Stanley Cup favorite is a welcome confidence boost following a late collapse in a loss to Winnipeg on Sunday.

“I’m sure nobody gave us much of a chance against a really good hockey team, but you know what I thought systematically we were a little more structured, over the last game for sure,” coach Jack Capuano said. “We were a little more sound in a lot of areas tonight.”

Pascal Dupuis scored with just more than a minute remaining to avoid the shutout but it wasn’t nearly enough to keep the Penguins from losing for the third time in their past four games.

Marc-Andre Fleury stopped 13 shots before being pulled after the second period. Fleury and backup Tomas Vokoun received little help from Pittsburgh’s defense. The Penguins gave it away 11 times, with two of the turnovers leading to New York goals.

“I’m not sure if we’re pressing early, and then it doesn’t happen and you get away from things,” Pittsburgh center Sidney Crosby said. “As you see tonight, we get a couple bad bounces, ended up down early and seems like we let that frustration kind of get to us.”

The Penguins had scored first in each of their five games this season, but Cizikas gave the Islanders a well-earned early lead by stealing the puck from Paul Martin deep in Pittsburgh’s zone, then swooping behind the net and wrapping it around an outstretched Fleury.

The goal served as an exclamation point on a period the Islanders dominated in a place where they rarely win. New York went in a loser in 13 of its previous 14 visits to Pittsburgh, the victory a 5-3 triumph last March that derailed any hopes the Penguins had of catching the New York Rangers for the Atlantic Division title.

Pittsburgh expects to be in the mix again during this truncated 48-game season but has hit an early rough patch that left the largest crowd in the brief history of Consol Energy Center voicing its displeasure following another disjointed effort.

The Penguins were drummed 5-2 by Toronto in the home opener last Wednesday and appeared no sharper six days later against another young, quick team that flustered Pittsburgh with its forechecking.

“We want to be a team that plays with pace and (is) tough to play against, and make teams come out of their own end and play a full 200-foot game,” Tavares said. “When we’re skating and getting on the forecheck, that’s when we’re most successful and that’s what we’ve been doing, and I think that was evident tonight.”

Not that the Penguins needed any help giving it away.

The Islanders went up 2-0 at 6:46 of the second period when Pittsburgh defenseman Deryk Engelland misplayed a New York clearing attempt at the blue line.

The puck bounced off Engelland’s stick and the speedy Grabner pounced, beating two Penguins up the ice, then flicking a wrist shot that deflected off Fleury’s glove and into the net.

The goal seemed to briefly energize Pittsburgh, which spent the next five minutes buzzing Nabokov. All the pressure failed to produce a goal, and a pair of power-play tallies by the Islanders late in the period put New York firmly in control.

Tavares wristed a pretty cross-ice pass from Moulson by Fleury to make it 3-0, and Moulson scored less than two minutes later, collecting a long shot off the end boards and stuffing it by a foundering Fleury.

The goaltender actually fell on his rear after the initial shot and failed to get up before Moulson stuffed it by him, a fitting ending to a maddening night.

Nabokov had no such problems. He improved to 10-2 lifetime against Pittsburgh, which went 0-for-3 on the power play, including a fruitless 5 minutes spanning the second and third periods after New York’s Colin McDonald was hit with a boarding penalty and a game misconduct for his hit on Penguins defenseman Ben Lovejoy.

“We definitely deflated ourselves with the power play,” Pittsburgh’s James Neal said. “But we’ve just got to have a better effort all over the ice, 5-on-5 and we just didn’t have it tonight.”

Game notes

Islanders F Jesse Joensuu is out five to seven weeks after having sports hernia surgery. Joensuu sustained the injury while playing in Europe during the NHL lockout … Pittsburgh D Matt Niskanen is day to day with a right foot injury … The Penguins announced earlier Tuesday that Consol Energy Center will host the second USA Hockey All-American Prospects game Sept. 26, 2013. … The Islanders play at New Jersey on Thursday while the Penguins play in New York against the Rangers.

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