WBS Pens Take Game One in OT

If tonight's Game One is any indication of how the series will go, it will certainly prove to be one hard-fought battle.

Regulation wasn't enough tonight and the Penguins and Senators got their first taste of overtime playoff hockey. Both teams exchanged chances in the overtime, but it wasn't until Trevor Smith and Chad Kolarik came into the WBS offensive zone eight minutes into the extra session that the deadlock was resolved.

Kolarik found space between the faceoff dots and beat Nathan Lawson to give the Penguins a 3-2 win and a 1-0 lead in the best-of-five series. It was Kolarik's second of the night and his fourth overtime winner of the season, but he didn't seem surprised that the game came down to the wire.

"Theyre not going to run us out of the building and we're not going to run them out of the building," Kolarik said."It's going to be a tight series."

The Penguins jumped out to a lead in the first period on goals by Brian Gibbons and Kolarik.

The first goal came with the Penguins on the power play, as Derek Nesbitt fed a tape-to-tape pass to Brian Dumoulin, who elected not to shoot but instead feed a slap pass to Gibbons in front of the net. Gibbons' re-direct into the net gave the Penguins the 1-0 lead.

The Penguins added to their lead about six minutes later when Riley Holzapfel forced a turnover behind the Senators net. Holzapfel nudged a puck to Smith, who found an open Kolarik in the slot. Kolarik made no mistake and roofed it past Lawson to extend the lead.

"Our start was very good," head coach John Hynes said. "We were able to get to our game. You could see guys were ready to play. It's something we talked about all week long."

Unfortunately for the Penguins, the Senators would get on the board late in the first period, which seemed to shift the momentum in their favor. Shane Prince floated a backhander through traffic with 47.3 left in the opening frame on a goal that really changed the dynamic of the final 40 minutes.

The Senators continued to have the edge in play in the second period, and tied the game at two when a puck hopped over Philip Samuelsson's stick and Mark Stone tapped it past Zatkoff. An unfortunate bounce for Samuelsson, but like Hynes said about the play, that's playoff hockey. Bad bounces are going to happen and the hope is that your team isn't on the sour end.

The turnaround for Game Two barely exists. The two teams do battle again in Binghamton tomorrow evening starting at 5:05.

While a Game One win is what the Penguins wanted, everyone in the locker room knows that neither team is going to go away without a fight. Penguins forward Bobby Farnham, who made his AHL playoff debut tonight, agrees that it's looking to be a hard-fought series.

"We know it's not going to be easy," Farnham said. "We just need to go out there and play our game."