Scoring three goals felt as good to Petr Sykora as he always believed it would. No longer having to hear that he lacked a hat trick might feel even better.
Sykora ended the longest streak in NHL history without a hat trick by a player who had at least two goals in a game and Pascal Dupuis also scored three times, leading the Pittsburgh Penguins' 9-2 rout of the New York Islanders on Thursday.
Evgeni Malkin had a goal and an assist, and Sidney Crosby set up three goals in Pittsburgh's first nine-goal game since beating the Philadelphia Flyers 9-4 on Feb. 7, 2001.
Sykora previously had 38 games with two goals without getting a third, far surpassing the 28 games by Hall of Fame defenseman Larry Murphy, who played for the Penguins' Stanley Cup-winning teams in 1991 and 1992.
Sykora long had a routine following two-goal games _ the Czech star insisted it didn't matter he had never scored three. Turns out, it did.
"I won't have to talk about it (not scoring three) anymore. It is a relief. As much as I talked that it didn't bother me, it did bother me, and now I feel pretty good," said Sykora, who also had an assist during his sixth career four-point game, also his personal high.
It was the seventh time in Penguins history that two players had hat tricks in a game and the first since Mario Lemieux and Joey Mullen accomplished it on April 9, 1993, against the New York Rangers.
Sykora put Pittsburgh ahead 3-1 by scoring 19 seconds after Mark Streit's goal for the Islanders briefly cut Pittsburgh's lead to one goal, then followed goals by Philippe Boucher and Malkin by scoring at 7:53 of the second on a power play to make it 6-1.
"This was one of those nights the puck kept coming to me," Sykora said.
With his teammates pressing to get him the long-elusive third goal, Sykora looked to have scored it from the side of the net two minutes later. But the play was waved off and, afterward, Sykora said Ruslan Fedotenko probably would have been credited with the goal even if it counted.
Sykora finally got No. 3 at 15:42 of the second, also on a power play, when Crosby put a pass on his stick in the slot and Sykora wristed it by goalie Yann Danis, who replaced Joey MacDonald to begin the second period.
"You're looking for a guy when he's got two goals, especially with that score, you might force it more than you normally would," Crosby said. "He knows where to go and I just put it on his stick."
Sykora leaped into Crosby's arms to celebrate, triggering a brief delay to clear the scores of hats that were tossed onto the ice. It was his 10th goal of the season.
"I can't say enough about Sid, he told me the play _ he's going to walk down the right side and he's going to give it to me," Sykora said. "Sid made that play."
