PITTSBURGH - Sidney Crosby’s broken jaw can take its time healing.
The way his teammates are playing, there is no need for the Pittsburgh Penguins star to rush back.
Pascal Dupuis scored twice, Marc-Andre Fleury made 26 saves, and the top-seeded Penguins opened the playoffs with a 5-0 romp over the New York Islanders on Wednesday night.
“It’s one win,” Dupuis said. “We definitely feel good about it, but we’ve just got to put this one behind us and get ready to work for the next one. They’ll definitely look at tape and come out harder, that’s for sure.”
The Islanders will have to if they have any hope of making the series competitive. Making its first playoff appearance since 2007, New York fell behind less than 5 minutes in and never recovered.
“I thought some guys worked hard and played a good game,” Islanders Coach Jack Capuano said. “Again, with our club we need all 20 guys going, and we didn’t Allhave all 20.”
That isn’t an issue for the staggeringly deep Penguins.
Rookie Beau Bennett, enforcer Tanner Glass and defenseman Kris Letang also scored for Pittsburgh, which had no trouble against the upstart Islanders even with Crosby relegated to cheerleader.
Fleury earned his sixth career playoff shutout while playing behind a defense that appears to have learned a few lessons from last spring’s embarrassing opening-round loss to Philadelphia.
The Flyers shredded Pittsburgh for 30 goals in six chaotic games. The Penguins have emphasized being responsible on defense all season, knowing their wealth of offensive talent will come to life when needed.
Pittsburgh wasted no time against the Islanders, beating Evgeni Nabokov four times in the game’s first 22 minutes, including goals by Letang and Dupuis 32 seconds apart early in the second period. That sent Nabokov to the bench after he stopped just 11 shots.
Kevin Poulin came on in relief and surrendered a soft goal to Glass. Capuano said it is too early to decide who will start in goal for Game 2 on Friday night.
Whoever it is will need help from the guys in front of him. The Islanders haven’t won a playoff series in 20 years, and the drought will extend to 21 quickly if they can’t keep Pittsburgh’s skaters in check.
“When you make it easy on them, they’re going to light you up,” New York forward Matt Martin said. “For most of the game we made it pretty easy on them, and if you do that they’re just going to run up the score on you.”
Pittsburgh rolled to the top of the East even though Crosby missed the final quarter of the season. The Penguins have been bolstered by the arrival of trade deadline acquisitions Jarome Iginla, Brenden Morrow, Jussi Jokinen and Doug Murray.
All four players are searching for their first Cup championship, and all four made an immediate impact in the series opener. Iginla and Jokinen both had two assists, and Morrow and Murray helped bottle up New York captain John Tavares.
BRUINS 4, MAPLE LEAFS 1
BOSTON - Nathan Horton scored the go-ahead goal late in the first period and Boston used a revived offense to beat Toronto in their playoff opener.
The Bruins scored more than three goals for the first time in 10 games. They closed the regular season on a 2-7 skid that dropped them to the No. 4 seed in the Eastern Conference.
That set up a first-round match up with fifth-seeded Toronto, the first time the teams have met in the postseason since 1974. The Maple Leafs, who are in the playoffs for the first time since 2004, lost four of their last six regular-season games.
Wade Redden also scored in the first period for Boston, and David Krejci and Johnny Boychuk added goals in the second.
James van Riemsdyk had given Toronto a 1-0 lead with a power play just 1:54 into the game.
Game 2 is scheduled for Saturday night in Boston, where the Bruins have won six in a row against the Maple Leafs.
At a glance
NHL PLAYOFFS
FIRST ROUND (Best-of-7)
WEDNESDAY’S GAMES
Boston 4, Toronto 1
Boston leads series 1-0
Pittsburgh 5, NY Islanders 0
Pittsburgh leads 1-0 San Jose at Vancouver, (n)
First game of series
TODAY’S GAMES All times Central
Ottawa at Montreal, 6 p.m.
First game of series
NY Rangers at Washington, 6:30 p.m.
First game of series
Los Angeles at St. Louis, 8:30 p.m.
St. Louis leads series 1-0
Detroit at Anaheim, 9 p.m.
Anaheim leads series 1-0
Sports, Pages 22 on 05/02/2013