OTTAWA - Even when playoffs are out of reach, it hurts to give away victories.

The Ottawa Senators coughed up a three-goal lead on Tuesday en route to a 5-3 loss against the surging Pittsburgh Penguins.

It was a scenario seen one too many times this season and just one of the reasons the Senators won't be advancing to the post-season.

"Losing sucks," said Ottawa goaltender Andrew Hammond.

"The way our season has gone is a tough pill to swallow. You don't get used to it. It never gets easier. It feels the same way it did game 50 or game 10. It's just not fun at all."

Carl Hagelin and Sidney Crosby led the way with two goals each. Patrick Hornqvist rounded out the scoring as Pittsburgh (47-25-8) won its seventh straight game. Rookie goaltender Matt Murray made 27 saves in his fourth start.

Erik Karlsson, Mike Hoffman and Zack Smith scored for the Senators (36-35-9). Hammond faced 27 shots.

"We let them get back into it," said Smith. "We didn't do a good enough job of shutting them down."

Tied 3-3, the Senators failed to score on a 1:32 two-man advantage to try and regain the lead and then midway through the period Kris Letang sprawled across the crease to make a huge save behind Murray that looked like a sure goal.

Then a harmless looking shot from Hagelin found its way past Hammond to make it 4-3 Pittsburgh.

"It looked like it was going to be a back-door pass and I just kind of opened up too much and he was able to squeak it off the post," said Hammond.

"It's just a save I have to make."

Penguins coach Mike Sullivan said he was impressed by his team's resiliency despite falling behind early.

"The mindset of the group right now is there's a mental toughness there that we can battle through some of that adversity even though we're not at our best," said Sullivan. "I didn't think we were. I didn't think we were quite as sharp as we've been, but certainly we found a way to win."

With the Senators holding precariously to a 3-2 lead to start the third the Penguins took advantage of a brutal Hoffman giveaway behind his own net to Nick Bonino, who found Hagelin wide open out front to tie the game at the four-minute mark.

Hoffman had given the Senators a 2-0 lead two minutes into the second scoring his 29th of the season and just over a minute later it was 3-0 as Smith, who was celebrating his 28th birthday, beat Murray glove side.

The Penguins managed to get on board at the seven-minute mark of the period as the puck seemed to get lost in the crowd in the crease and Hornqvist was able to jam it past Hammond.

Crosby then went on to extend his point streak to seven games (3G, 4A) as he picked up a rebound and beat Hammond shortside to make it 3-2 at the 15-minute mark.

Despite the rally, Letang said the Penguins need to take a lesson from this game.

"You can't think that we played well because we won the game. You have to think it's a good character win. We believe in each other and by playing the right way I think we showed in the second and the third that we can do some good things, but if you start like that in the playoffs you're going to get burned."

Karlsson picked up his 100th career goal midway through the first as he banked a shot off Hornqvist. It was Karlsson's 80th point of the season.

Already without a number of veterans, the Senators Bobby Ryan suffered a lower-body injury in the second and did not return for the third. Senators coach Dave Cameron said Ryan is likely day-to-day at this point.

Notes: The Senators were without D Marc Methot (undisclosed), RW Mark Stone (upper body) and C Scott Gomez was a healthy scratch. RW Buddy Robinson made his NHL debut.