MONTREAL (AP) It was only a matter of time before the relentless Pittsburgh Penguins pulled away from the Montreal Canadiens and held them at bay.Patric Hornqvist’s second goal of the game gave the Penguins the lead in the third period Patrick Kane Jersey , and they went on to beat the Canadiens 5-3 Thursday night.Pittsburgh fell behind 2-0 early before scoring tying it late in the first period, and taking the lead in the second. The Canadiens then quickly tied it again.”It wasn’t looking good early but we stuck with it,” Penguins forward Sidney Crosby said. ”We generated some really good chances in this game. Second half of the first and the rest of the game, we played with more urgency and desperation and the result took care of itself.”Phil Kessel, Evgeni Malkin and Bryan Rust also scored for Pittsburgh, which remain tied with Washington in points atop the Metropolitan Division. The Capitals, however, currently hold the tiebreaker with two games in hand.Tristan Jarry made 17 saves for his 14th win of the season while starter Matt Murray remains sidelined with a concussion.Artturi Lehkonen, Paul Byron and Nicolas Deslauriers scored for Montreal, and Antti Niemi stopped 34 shots in his first regulation loss since Feb. 14.Hornqvist put Pittsburgh in front for good with 7:36 remaining in the third period by deflecting Carl Hagelin’s shot past Niemi. Rust added some insurance with an empty-netter with 1:53 left.”Give them credit. They shut us down for the latter part of the game and eventually took it over,” said Canadiens coach Claude Julien. ”They’re Stanley Cup champions for a reason. … As the game went on http://www.officialavalanche.com/authentic-adidas-alexander-kerfoot-jersey , we got worse offensively. When they get scoring chances, they score. They shot from everywhere tonight.”Montreal jumped ahead early in the first period with scores from Lehkonen and Byron.Lehkonen deflected Jeff Petry’s shot past Jarry at 3:13 for his fourth goal in four games, and Byron made it 2-0 at 6:31 as he knocked in a rebound on the power play for his 17th.The Penguins had two shots on net at that point, but the deficit seemed to act as a wake-up call.Kessel got Pittsburgh on the board at 10:05 on a 2-on-1 with Rust after a giveaway by Petry in his own zone.Hornqvist tied it 2-2 when his centering pass to Hagelin in front of goal went off Byron’s stick and trickled past his own goalie.It was all Pittsburgh in the second period as they outshot the Canadiens 18-4, but they only had one goal to show for their efforts.Malkin put the Penguins in front 3-2 at 10:30 with a one-timer from the faceoff dot while playing with the man advantage.”Line after line they come at you,” Montreal’s Brendan Gallagher said. ”You make a mistake and you spend a couple of minutes in your own zone. That wears you down as the game goes on. … We’re disappointed with the result but we were playing one of the best teams in the league. You can see why. It was a struggle for us tonight to create offense.”Montreal tied it when Deslauriers found himself all alone in the slot two minutes later. The 27-year-old beat Jarry top shelf for his eighth.NOTES: Penguins F Sidney Crosby had an assist on Malkin’s goal to move two away from 800 in his career.UP NEXTPenguins: At the New York Islanders on Tuesday night.Canadiens: At Toronto on Saturday night. CHICAGO (AP) What was left of the United Center crowd was mostly quiet while the final seconds of an era ticked off Tuesday night. There was no big rally for the Chicago Blackhawks. No final charge.It’s over.The NHL playoffs will go on without Chicago for the first time in a decade after the Blackhawks were eliminated from contention with a 5-1 loss to the Colorado Avalanche. Injuries, aging stars and inexperience combined to sink Chicago after a wildly successful run that included three Stanley Cup titles.”It’s been a tough, tough stretch here,” coach Joel Quenneville said.Quenneville was coaching Colorado the last time Chicago missed the playoffs. The former NHL defenseman and the Avalanche decided to part ways after the team was swept by Detroit in the second round of the 2008 postseason, and he replaced Denis Savard after the Blackhawks fired the Hall of Famer four games into the following season.What followed was the most successful decade in franchise history. Led by a core group of stars that included Jonathan Toews, Patrick Kane and Duncan Keith Erik Condra Jersey Womens , Chicago won three Stanley Cups and reached the conference finals two more times while appearing in the playoffs for nine straight seasons.But it looks as if age and an annual dance with the salary cap might have finally caught up to the Blackhawks (30-35-9), who are last in the Central Division with eight games left on their schedule.”We’ve had some terrific players and some really good teams, real good depth,” Quenneville said. ”We didn’t always have good starts to the season, but had a lot of options to work with as a staff. The building was rocking and we’re good at home, and we’re successful on the road, real consistent.”This has been the one year we’ve been unpredictable in our game, and our possession game has been the one area that we’ve nailed. This year, we didn’t get to that level we needed to get to.”An injury to two-time All-Star goaltender Corey Crawford also contributed to Chicago’s rapid decline. The 33-year-old Crawford hasn’t played since Dec. 23 due to an upper-body injury, and it has been a steep drop-off to backups Anton Forsberg, Jean-Francois Berube and Jeff Glass.The Blackhawks also have been without top forward Marian Hossa all season due to severe side effects from medication to treat a progressive skin disorder. It’s unclear if he will ever play again.”You’re always going to have key injuries Carl Soderberg Jersey ,” Quenneville said. ”Always going to have significant injuries, have some things go against you. But we’ve always been able to overcome them and find ways rectify some tough situations and get back on track. This year we’ve been unable to do it.”Chicago still might have been able to make a playoff run if not for its other issues. Toews, Keith and key defenseman Brent Seabrook are showing signs of age after years of long playoff runs and international play. The Blackhawks’ young defensemen have experienced some growing pains, and Brandon Saad has struggled in his return to Chicago after an offseason trade with Columbus.But the Blackhawks just got a closer look at a possible roadmap for a return to contention.The Avalanche are in prime position to return to the playoffs after going 22-56-4 last season. Top goaltender Semyon Varlamov is healthy again after playing in just 24 games a year ago. Mikko Rantanen has developed into an offensive presence at age 21, and rookie Alexander Kerfoot scored twice against Chicago to get to 17 goals on the season.”There’s a great example in the team we played today, and in how far out you can be, and how quickly you can recapture that winning attitude and that feeling and get right back in the race,” Quenneville said after the Blackhawks’ sixth loss in seven games.”The playoff picture’s probably completely different than a lot of people anticipated. That’s how close teams are when they begin a year, and things can go right from goaltending to special teams to top players. There’s a number of ways where you can make a difference and new young players are certainly a part of that equation.”—Jay Cohen can be reached at http://www.twitter.com/jcohenap—