eat Jared Cowen to the puck and threaded a pass to Eaton

TORONTO -- Sidney Crosby, Brad Marchand and Patrice Bergeron look as if they have been playing together for years, not weeks.The trio has been unstoppable in the World Cup of Hockey, combining for 22 points in five games. Canadas top line scored twice in a 3-1 win over Team Europe on Tuesday night, helping the host country move to the brink of the tournament title.We feel good together, Crosby said. I still feel like tonight we did some good things, but we didnt manage the puck quite as well and we were playing in our own end maybe more than we wanted to. Well look to get better, but I think the chemistry is there.Game 2 in the best-of-three finals is Thursday night.Marchand scored the first goal of Game 1, making him the only player in the World Cup with four goals. Bergerons goal was his third in five games. Crosby contributed two assists, giving him nine points and a two-point cushion over the rest of the field.Its fun to watch, said Steven Stamkos, who scored Canadas second goal against Team Europe. We got the best seat in the house on the bench, watching them dominate. In a short tournament, chemistry is tough to find, but those guys have found it since Day 1.Theyre elite players and all different types of players, Canada coach Mike Babcock said.Shortly after killing off a penalty in the opening minutes of Game 1, Bergeron carried the puck up the middle of the ice, faded to the right and passed across the crease to set up Marchands fourth goal 2:33 into the game. The Boston Bruins teammates have made the most out of playing with Crosby, the superstar captain of the Stanley Cup champion Pittsburgh Penguins.Crosby flashed a mix of skill and grit on his second assist that helped Canada take a 3-1 lead. He shot the puck on the left side of the net, got to the carom and circled back to set up Bergeron in front of the net.Those guys are very good finding the little area in the open slot, Europe defenseman Dennis Seidenberg said. Youve just got to try to keep them to the outside, try to stay inside of them and try your best.---Follow Larry Lage at www.twitter.com/larrylage and follow his work at www.bigstory.ap.org/content/larry-lage Gerardo Parra Nationals Jersey . - Chris Tierney snapped a tie with a power-play goal late in the third period as the London Knights rallied from a 3-0 deficit to beat the Erie Otters 5-3 in Ontario Hockey League action on Wednesday. Frank Robinson Jersey . James, who turned 29 on Monday, injured his groin Friday during the Heats overtime loss at Sacramento. He sat out the following game, a 108-107 win Saturday in Portland, before coming back to help send the Nuggets to their seventh consecutive loss. https://www.cheapnationals.com/1207r-andrew-stevenson-jersey-nationals.html . - NASCAR announced a 33-race schedule for the 2014 Nationwide Series with virtually no changes from this years slate. Washington Nationals Gear . - Blake Griffin had 30 points and 12 rebounds, J. Javy Guerra Nationals Jersey . They hope to persuade the other team owners and commissioner Roger Goodell to put pressure on Redskins owner Daniel Snyder to drop the nickname they find offensive. "Given the way the meeting transpired," Ray Halbritter, an Oneida representative and leader of the "Change the Mascot Campaign," said Wednesday, "it became somewhat evident they were defending the continued use of the name.PITTSBURGH -- Ottawa offered no answer for the surging Penguins. The way Pittsburgh is playing now, with offence up and down a lineup that isnt being dominated by stars Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin, the Senators couldnt help but wonder if any team does. James Neal scored a hat trick as the Penguins advanced to the Eastern Conference final for the third time in six seasons by closing out the Senators 6-2 in Game 5 on Friday night. Just as Ottawas franchise icon Daniel Alfredsson foresaw following a 7-3 Penguins rout in Game 4, the Senators werent good enough to rally from a 3-1 deficit for the first time in six attempts in franchise history. After winning Game 3 on home ice with a comeback that started in the final minute of regulation, they were outscored 13-5 in two runaway Penguins victories. "They were better than us in each and every game and I was just trying to put the pressure on them," said Alfredsson, who acknowledged after Pittsburghs 7-3 win in Game 4 it would be extremely difficult for the Senators to rally. "I still believe that we could do it, if we win one game I think that comment helps us, and thats where it came from." The 40-year-old Alfredsson, an Ottawa fixture since 1995, said he will decide at some point in the off-season whether he will return for a 17th NHL season. "Its really tough with four young kids at home," Alfredsson said. "Thats kind of where I struggle personally. Ill talk to (the Senators) and see what they think. I think I still can play, I really enjoyed the playoffs and had a lot of fun with it. Ill take a little bit of time, I dont want to make a quick decision." Coach Paul MacLean said of Alfredsson and defenceman Sergei Gonchar: "My expectations are they will come back until they tell me." After beating Montreal the opening round following an injury-filled season in which they surprisingly made the playoffs, the Senators were good enough to win only once in a series decided by Pittsburghs offensive execution and a scoring depth that ranges far beyond Crosby and Malkin. Brenden Morrow, Kris Letang and Malkin each added singles for the Penguins on Friday, while Neals goals gave him five in the final two games of the series. "We got to our game a lot. The depth we had showed," Crosby said. "Different guys chipping in, the whole way through we didnt have many lulls where we lost momentum at any point." The Penguins were aided by the solid goaltending of Tomas Vokoun, who made 29 saves and doesnt appear willing to give back his job to former Stanley Cup winner Marc-Andre Fleury any time soon. Pittsburgh, which led the conference during the regular season, will play either the Boston Bruins or New York Rangers in the Eastern Conference finals. Boston leads 3-1 in a series that resumes Saturday night. "They have a good team and theyre really pushing for it," Senators defenceman Erik Karlsson said. "Right now, theyre playing the way they want to. The first two games (in Pittsburgh) we werent prepared for what they were bringing, they played really well and we definitely didnt play the way wanted to. ... They came out and started stronger the last game (Game 4) and this game as well." For the Senators, who generated only goals by Milan Michalek and Kyle Turris, it was yet another disappointing conclusion to a season. They have failed to advance past the conferencce semifinals since reaching the Stanley Cup final in 2007, but they advanced one round further than they did a season ago.dddddddddddd "A lot of things have to go right for you to get past each round," goalie Craig Anderson said. "The deeper you go, the harder it gets. The better teams keep advancing and the opponents get tougher and tougher. We have to continue to get better. If youre not growing youre dying, and we need to keep growing." Much like the series, Game 5 didnt take long to decide as the Penguins overwhelmed Anderson with waves of scoring attempts -- even when Crosby, who had just an assist, and Malkin werent on the ice. "We didnt respond to start Game 4 and we didnt respond after losing Game 4," Turris said. Malkin did get Pittsburghs fourth goal, his fourth of the playoffs, on a short breakaway created by the turnover Neal generated at mid-ice in the final minute of a second period in which Pittsburgh scored three times. Neal added his second of the game unassisted at 11:07 of the third, and his sixth of the playoffs and third of the game with 2:39 remaining. "Everything hes done, especially the last couple games, hes created a lot of chances for himself," Crosby said of Neal. "That whole line (Jarome Iginla-Malkin-Neal) has been pretty hard to stop. Theyre not fun to play against." The Penguins are averaging 4.27 goals a game through 11 playoff games, the best such pace of any team since the 1992-93 Penguins averaged 4.17 goals per game. Pittsburgh has also scored at least four goals in nine of 11 playoff games, only once failing to score fewer than three, a 2-1 overtime loss in Game 3 in Ottawa. But they recovered from that lone defeat in the series to easily win the final two games, including the Game 4 rout in which MacLeans post-game news conference lasted only 13 seconds and Alfredsson couldnt generate much optimism for a series comeback in a quiet dressing room. "I think weve been confident the whole series against Ottawa," Letang said. "We knew that playing a north-south (fast-paced) series would get us rewarded." In Game 5, the Penguins never trailed after Morrow, who missed Wednesday with an undisclosed injury, beat Anderson down low off a pass by Mark Eaton 6:25 into the first. The play was started after longtime Senators antagonist Matt Cooke beat Jared Cowen to the puck and threaded a pass to Eaton. The goal was reviewed briefly before it was determined Morrow did not use a distinct kicking motion while directing the puck by Anderson. Neal made it 2-0 on a power play created by Jean-Gabriel Pageaus interference penalty nearly 7 1/2 minutes into the second, and Letang pushed it to 3-0 with a 4-on-4 goal just over five minutes later. Tyler Kennedy skated the puck out of his own zone before sending a pass to the left circle to Letang, who cut into the high slot to beat Anderson with a hard wrist shot. Michalek, reunited on a line with Alfredsson and Jason Spezza, finally got Ottawa on the board late in the second period. But the Senators didnt have nearly enough -- not in this game and not in the series. "They (the Penguins) really showed the step you have to take to continue to play in the Stanley Cup playoffs," MacLean said. "I can tell them its going to be hard, its going to be hard, its going to be harder, but I think we got a solid lesson in terms of what it takes." ' ' '