The Ottawa Senators stand on the brink of elimination.
They haven't been able to stop Sidney Crosby throughout their first-round playoff series and they got burned again in a 7-4 loss to the Pittsburgh Penguins on Tuesday night, courtesy a four-point effort from one of the NHL's top players.
While the Senators were convinced they'd be able to get back in the series before Game 4 at Scotiabank Place, Crosby and Co. shelled Ottawa and chased goalie Brian Elliott in the process with four goals on 19 shots.
"There's a lot of momentum swings in the playoffs, but we definitely swung the momentum our way with this," said Pittsburgh's Maxime Talbot, who had a two-point night.
Now the Senators have to dig themselves out of a hole, trailing 3-1 in the series with Game 5 Thursday at Mellon Arena (CBC, CBCSports.ca, 7 p.m. ET).
"It's not insurmountable because it's not over," said Ottawa defenceman Chris Phillips. "We did a lot of things we can't do if we want to win.
"We've got one game to go and play. We're going to do everything we can to win that game and then come home to play another one."
"It sounds boring. That's what we've got to do.
"If you look at the first three games of this series, they were really close games. We believe we have it in that dressing room.
"We just have to go and do it, obviously. Talk is cheap."
'Starting to get rattled'
The key for the Penguins is Crosby. He has 11 points in four games and the Senators just haven't been able to find a way to stop him.
Ottawa spotted Pittsburgh a 4-0 lead during an incredible eight-goal second period, but the whole was simply too much for the Senators to come back from, and coach Cory Clouston said he was trying to change the momentum pulling Elliott.
"He was starting to get rattled a little bit and was struggling," said Clouston. "We just have to refocus and regroup.
"Things just seemed to start to unravel on us. We didn't make good on their turnovers and they made good on our turnovers.
"They're capitalizing our mistakes and we're not capitalizing on their mistakes. That's what good teams do. It's tough to battle back when you give up that many goals early in the game, especially against a team like them."
'Nothing is done yet'
The Penguins can sense the end is near.
"We knew they were going to play hard," said Crosby. "We wanted to make sure that we gave it our best shot here to go home 3-1.
"We gave ourselves that opportunity. Nothing is done yet, but we've got an opportunity here at home that we want to be able to take advantage of."
The Senators, who had goals from Jason Spezza, Daniel Alfredsson, Matt Cullen and Chris Neil are shocked by the position they're in.
"We won Game 1, we had a chance to win Game 2 and the first game here we felt better about our game, but the outcome wasn't what we wanted," said Neil. "Tonight, we put ourselves in a position to win.
"It's frustrating to lose. That's why it's a seven-game series.
"You can't really hang your head. You've got to win.
"We've got to go back to Pittsburgh and we've got to win. We showed some poise coming back.
"We didn't give up. I'll go to war with anyone in our room."
The Senators made one change by putting winger Jonathan Cheechoo in the lineup. He replaced winger Ryan Shannon, who was a healthy scratch. Cheechoo played 7:13 and had no shots.
