The Pittsburgh Penguins paid the price for careless defence when a 5-2 loss to the New York Rangers ended their hopes of moving top of the Eastern Conference and Atlantic Division.

"There were a few mental breakdowns and big turnovers that cost games and they were a better team than us tonight," Pittsburgh coach Michel Therrien said with his team still one point behind the New Jersey Devils in the standings.

The Penguins, without the injured Sidney Crosby, rallied for two quick goals in the second period to wipe out a 2-0 deficit but quickly gave the puck away to allow the Rangers to re-establish control.

Ryan Whitney's blind pass up the middle was intercepted by Fredrik Sjostrom in the Pittsburgh zone and the New York forward walked in alone and beat Ty Conklin with the go-ahead goal just 44 seconds after Pittsburgh tied the game.

"The end result is an indicator on the way the game went," said Therrien. "It's tough to win when you give up five goals. We're not going to win games like this."

Sean Avery scored two goals to lead the Rangers, who shook off back-to-back losses in Florida with a big victory.

New York had been 10-0-3 in their last 13 games before losing to the Florida Panthers and Tampa Bay Lightning over the weekend.

"It was huge," New York's Jaromir Jagr said. "I think we needed something like that for our confidence to get the monkey off our back. All the teams behind us were winning."

The Rangers moved into sole possession of sixth place in the Eastern Conference and are five points behind the Devils in both the conference and Atlantic Division as the rivals prepare to meet in New Jersey on Wednesday.

New York goalie Henrik Lundqvist made 22 saves in recording his 100th career win in his 187th game.

Reuters