Rangers topple Penguins, but lose Callahan to injury

Just when the New York Rangers welcomed back one important player, another went down with an injury.

Erik Christensen and Alex Frolov scored 15 seconds apart to spark a four-goal third period, and the visiting Rangers rallied for a 4-1 victory over the Pittsburgh Penguins last night, their third win in four games and ninth in 13.

New York captain Chris Drury played in only his second game this season due to a broken finger, but teammate Ryan Callahan is expected to be out 6 weeks after breaking his left hand.

Callahan was injured when he blocked a shot in the first period by Penguins defenseman Kris Letang.

"I'm not going to sit here and pretend. That's a big loss to us in Callahan," Rangers coach John Tortorella said of his second-leading scorer, who will be evaluated today in New York. "I felt it right away as a coach on the bench as far as the situations that we use him in.''

The Rangers face the Flyers Saturday at the Wells Fargo Center.

Sidney Crosby extended his point streak to a career-high 20 games when he assisted on Evgeni Malkin's first-period goal, but the Penguins lost for the second straight night after winning 12 in a row.

Christensen tied it with 9:50 to play, while New York was on the power play, and Frolov gave the Rangers a 2-1 lead by burying his own rebound at 10:25.

Artem Anisimov and Brian Boyle scored 34 seconds apart less than 5 minutes later to ice the Rangers' first win in regulation in Pittsburgh since Jan. 19, 2006 - a span of 16 games.

"It's a great win in a lot of ways," said Henrik Lundqvist, who made 27 saves. "I think we won because we stuck to the system. We didn't start taking chances. We believed we could come back in this game, and once we got the first one, we kept going. It was a great team effort."

New York is an NHL-best 12-5 on the road.

In other games:

* At Washington, Ryan Getzlaf scored 4:03 into overtime to give the Anaheim Ducks a 2-1 victory and send the Capitals to their seventh straight loss.

The Capitals are on their worst skid since Bruce Boudreau became coach just over 3 years ago.

Getzlaf did much of the winning play himself. He outfought defenseman John Carlson for the puck on the left boards, spun around and fired a shot past goalie Semyon Varlamov from the circle.

* At Buffalo, Drew Stafford scored three goals for his third hat trick, and the Sabres broke a third-period tie and beat Boston, 3-2.

Derek Roy assisted on all of Stafford's goals, and Ryan Miller made 32 saves for the Sabres.

* At Chicago, Tomas Fleischmann scored three times, including back-to-back power-play goals in the third period, to lead the Colorado Avalanche to a 4-3 victory over the Blackhawks.

* At Newark, N.J., Ilya Kovalchuk broke out of a drought with two goals, and Martin Brodeur made 29 saves as the New Jersey Devils snapped a five-game losing streak with a 3-0 victory over Phoenix.

* At Detroit, star defenseman Nicklas Lidstrom had three goals and an assist for his first career hat trick to help the Red Wings beat St. Louis, 5-2.

* At Vancouver, Ryan Kesler's second goal of the game, with 1:30 left in overtime, lifted the Canucks to a 3-2 victory over Columbus.

* At Tampa, Fla., Victor Hedman scored in the fourth round of a shootout to help the Lightning beat the Atlanta Thrashers, 2-1.

* At Sunrise, Fla., Tuomo Ruutu scored two third-period goals and the Carolina Hurricanes came from behind to beat the Florida Panthers, 4-3.

* At Nashville, Sergei Kostitsyn and Colin Wilson scored goals 44 seconds apart in the third period and the Predators earned their fourth straight victory by beating San Jose, 3-2.