Panthers Rip Penguins; Johnston Irate

It was the greatest third period in Florida Panthers history - and it was no surprise that center Stu Barnes was in the middle of it.

Barnes, who came in with 10 playoff assists and is known as the team’s playmaker, scored twice as the Panthers burned Pittsburgh in a three-goal third period at Miami.

It translated into a 5-2 victory over the Penguins Friday night in the Eastern Conference championship series as the Panthers continued their surprise playoff run.

“I’m disappointed and embarrassed about what happened,” said a livid Pittsburgh coach Eddie Johnston. “I know we can’t play any worse then we did. We have yet to play 60 minutes in a game since the New York series. You don’t have many opportunities in life to get this far and then fold.”

Gord Murphy and Dave Lowry added three assists to help the Panthers to a 2-1 lead in the best-of-seven series with the next game in Miami on Sunday.

Florida had a club-record 61 shots against the Penguins, beating the old record of 52 with 12 minutes left in the game. The Panthers took the first 20 shots of the third period and outshot Pittsburgh 61-28 overall.

The Panthers wanted to take more shots after getting too fancy with the puck in losing to Pittsburgh in Game 2.

For the Panthers, Ray Sheppard scored his seventh playoff goal, while rookie Radek Dvorak and Martin Straka each got their first.

Bryan Smolinski and Petr Nedved scored for Pittsburgh. Florida goaltender John Vanbiesbrouck, however, shut down Pittsburgh’s big guns of Mario Lemieux and Jaromir Jagr.

Things were going so bad that Jagr broke his stick on a one-timer at an open net with 2 minutes left in the game.

With the score 2-2, Barnes scored the game-winner on the power play 55 seconds into the third when he picked up a loose puck off Lowry’s stick and beat Penguins goaltender Tom Barrasso stickside for a 3-2 lead.

The Panthers’ power play was set up by a hooking call at the end of the second period against Pittsburgh’s Glenn Murray on Lowry - who ended up cutting the wing with his skate.

Johnston said he expect a different Penguins team come Sunday. “We should be well rested because we never showed up in the third period,” Johnston said.

Panthers 5, Penguins 2

Pittsburgh 1 1 0 - 2

Florida 1 1 3 - 5

First period-1, Florida, Sheppard 7 (Jovanovski, Lowry), 1:46. 2, Pittsburgh, Smolinski 4 (Roche, Murray), 16:02. Second period-3, Pittsburgh, Nedved 8 (Jagr), :27. 4, Florida, Dvorak 1 (Neidermayer, Laus), 3:51. Third period-5, Florida, Barnes 4 (Lowry, Murphy), :55 (pp). 6, Florida, Barnes 5 (Lowry), 4:55. 7, Florida, Straka 1 (Murphy, Dvorak), 7:37.

Shots on goal-Pittsburgh 13-13-2-28. Florida 19-19-23-61.Power-play opp.-Pittsburgh 0 of 5; Florida 1 of 8.Goalies-Pittsburgh, Barrasso 2-3 (61 shots-56 saves). Florida, Vanbiesbrouck 10-4 (28-26).A-14,703 (14,703).

Claude Lemieux suspended one game

Colorado’s Claude Lemieux was suspended for one game by the NHL for sucker-punching Detroit’s Vyacheslav Kozlov in Game 3 of their series Thursday. Colorado leads the series 2-1.

The ruling in New York came in the wake of chiding by Colorado coach Mark Crawford that Red Wings coach Scotty Bowman was creating controversy and fostering a circus “sideshow” when he believes it might benefit his team.

At the instigation of the Red Wings, the NHL looked into the incident involving Lemieux and Kozlov. Lemieux’s action was in retaliation for an incident in which Kozlov slammed Adam Foote’s head into the glass, causing a gaping cut in Foote’s forehead that required 20 stitches.

No penalties were called in either altercation.