PITTSBURGH -- Sidney Crosby scored three goals in the opening 21 minutes, 15 seconds for his second career playoff hat trick as the Pittsburgh Penguins held off two Ottawa comebacks to beat the Senators 4-3 Friday night in Game 2 of the NHL Eastern Conference semifinals.
Ottawa is down 2-0 in the best-of-seven series to the one Eastern Conference team no one wants to trail by so much so early.
Brenden Morrow had the other Penguins goal, while Tomas Vokoun made 19 saves for the win.
Kyle Turris, Colin Greening and Jean-Gabriel Pageau replied for Ottawa.
Pageau scored his fourth playoffs goal 2:01 into the third period to get the Senators back to within a goal, but Vokoun -- who took over for former Stanley Cup winner Marc-Andre Fleury in the first-round Islanders series and hasn't given up the job after four games -- shut out Ottawa the rest of the way.
Dropping the first two games before standing-room crowds in Pittsburgh could be an ominous sign for the Senators, who face what almost certainly is a must-win Game 3 Sunday night at home. They are 0-7 in their playoff history when trailing 2-0 in a series, and now they're down by that margin to a star-laden team that was easily the conference's best during the regular season and one that already has 33 goals in eight playoff games.
Crosby, who missed a quarter of the season with a broken jaw, was the difference after not scoring in the Penguins' Game 1 victory Wednesday, when post-season scoring leader Evgeni Malkin had a goal and an assist.
Malkin assisted on Crosby's third goal Friday.
Crosby, who was on pace to cruise to the NHL scoring title before breaking his jaw, gave Pittsburgh the lead just 3:16 in to the game by skating through three Senators, including a masterful fake to elude star defenceman Erik Karlsson in the upper left circle, before beating Craig Anderson with a wrister at the bottom of the circle for his 100th career playoff point. He reached the mark in 75 career games, making him the fifth fastest to do so -- and Mario Lemieux, the Penguins' co-owner who was one of the first four to do so, watched from a private box.
Turris answered nearly 10 minutes later with his fourth of the playoffs, a bad-angle shot from along the goal line that deflected off Vokoun, but Crosby came right back less than a minute later with a similar goal. He grabbed Chris Kunitz's drop pass and scored on another wrist shot from along the goal-line as Karlsson went down to block the shot but couldn't deflect it at 16:07 of the first.
Karlsson, the Norris Trophy winner whose own season was largely interrupted by a 31-game layoff with an Achilles injury inflicted by Penguins forward Matt Cooke, also figured in Crosby's third goal. He went off for hooking 49 seconds into the second period, and Crosby completed his hat trick 26 seconds into the power play with a slap shot that Anderson couldn't corral.
Crosby's third goal prompted coach Paul MacLean to replace Anderson -- who faced exactly a shot a minute while on the ice -- with Robin Lehner, who allowed only one goal but a key one the rest of the way.
After Greening tried to rally the Senators by scoring only 40 seconds after Crosby's third goal on a wrister from the left circle, Lehner made a strong save on Jarome Iginla's short breakaway.
But Morrow restored Pittsburgh's two-goal lead by deflecting Paul Martin's slap shot from just inside the blue-line that touched both James Neal and Morrow en route to the net at 8:04.
The Penguins outshot the Senators 42-22 but converted only one of six power-play chances.
Crosby's only other career playoff hat trick was against the Capitals in 2009. Lemieux owns the Penguins record with three post-season hat tricks.