Sidney Crosby, still in uniform from the waist down, didn't address the media until about 20 minutes after the final horn sounded Monday night. That's quite unusual for him.
Mike Sullivan, a man for whom the NHL-mandated 10-minute cool-down period is very much needed before speaking to the media, required substantially more time.
Unfortunately for coach and captain, they already had to absorb from ice level the Penguins' 5-1 loss to the Devils Monday night at PPG Paints Arena, marking their fourth loss in a row.
And those two weren't alone. Unable to stomach much more of the carnage from seven floors above, Jim Rutherford exited the press box after two periods. Needless to say, he wasn't too happy.
Where do the Penguins go from here?
On Saturday, Sullivan mixed up his bottom six forwards. On Sunday, he put his team through a grueling, 45-minute on-ice session at the Lemieux Complex that resembled boot camp as much as a practice. On Monday morning, he mixed up two of his three defense pairs.
He's tried tinkering. He's tried yelling. Nothing, it seems, is getting through to a veteran-laden team that still considers itself among the NHL's elite. They just haven't resembled it lately.
Afterward, to a man, they tried to put a happy face on it. The coach, too.
"Obviously, we're concerned," Sullivan allowed. "We don't want to lose four games in a row. At this particular point of the season, it's more about the process right now."
"Tonight we made some big mistakes," Crosby said. "But at the same time, we did some good things. But it's an example of how it's going for us. We have to earn our way back into the win column. Nobody's going to give it us."
Crosby's assertion that the Penguins did some "good things" is subjective, of course. But, I suppose, after a 5-0 loss to Toronto two nights earlier, it wasn't that bad.
Patric Hornqvist said he also saw a better effort, though he might have needed a magnifying glass to confirm. The Penguins were outshot, 39-36, but managed to win the possession game with a slight 51-49 Corsi For percentage in all situations.
"Actually, today we improved from last game but we've still got a long way to go," said Hornqvist, one of the few to show any real emotion. "Have to find a way to do those small things and work for each other and have a little more fun with it. Right now we're one and done all over the ice."
Monday's loss matched their longest skid since March 23-29, 2017. Of course that season ended with Pittsburgh celebrating its fifth Stanley Cup championship, and second in as many years.
Perhaps that is the Penguins' biggest problem. Well, that and the specter of a fifth straight loss Wednesday night when they face the Capitals, the team that dethroned them last spring, in a nationally televised game in Washington.
Call it confidence or arrogance, but there's an undying belief in the Penguins' room that they will get back on track as is. Sullivan said the answers are all within the room.
"We just have to work ourselves out of it," Crosby said. "It's something that a lot of us have been through before."
But Monday's loss should serve as yet another reminder that those days, great as they were, might be in the past. This team, whose core remains virtually intact, isn't getting any younger. And as their last two losses against the speedy Maple Leafs and now Devils have shown, they aren't getting any faster.
The Penguins insist that isn't the case, but rather a byproduct from having to play catch-up. They are now 1-4 when their opponent scores first.
"We're chasing games, it's easy for teams to play on their toes when they have two or three goal cushions," Crosby said. "You'd probably say the same thing about us when we have a two or three goal lead: That we're aggressive. We're on our toes. We look fast."
The problem is that the Penguins haven't held more than a one-goal lead since their game in Vancouver on Oct. 27.
They can still win, as they showed that in their 4-0 trip through Canada, particularly when they're emotionally invested and committed to playing a 200-foot game.
"I always think it starts with a certain attitude," Sullivan said. "And when we have a swagger to our game, we're a real good hockey team. The last couple of games we haven't had that."
Nor have they scored goals. Not their stars. Certainly not the supporting cast. Despite putting up six goals in Edmonton and nine goals in Calgary during their successful -- and now-distant -- road trip, they are not a team that can flip a switch on a whim and simply outscore teams consistently on a nightly basis. During this losing streak, the goal differential has been 19-6. All six goals have come from either Crosby, Evgeni Malkin, Dominik Simon or Jamie Oleksiak, who scored the Penguins' lone goal against the Devils.
Over the past two games, they've scored once. On Monday, they were outscored by one guy.
Brian Boyle's natural hat trick was the first by a Devil against the Penguins in a game in Pittsburgh since Oct. 28, 2000, when Randy McKay and John Madden each had four-goal nights. That game, in part, is what prompted Mario Lemieux to come out of retirement.
Don't think Le Magnifique is coming through the door anytime soon.
"We don't like losing," said Riley Sheahan, whose last goal came 11 games ago. "It's one of those games we didn't play our absolute worst. There was good things we could take from everything. We just have to settle down and kind of get back to basics. There's no point in getting overly-frustrated. We just have to come back and focus on Washington."
THE ESSENTIALS
• Boxscore
THREE STARS
My curtain calls go to …
1. Brian Boyle
Devils left winger
Fitting on "Hockey Fights Cancer" night that Boyle, a cancer survivor and winner of last year's Masterton Trophy nets the first hat trick of his 12-year career.
Happy to have played a small part in such a great moment for @BriBrows22. Congrats on your first career hatty! #BoyleStrong https://t.co/mkyCmLuT2T
— Taylor Hall (@hallsy09) November 6, 2018
2. Will Butcher
Devils defenseman
Butcher was a good story last season, putting up 44 points as a rookie. He had a goal and two assists Monday for the second three-point game of his career.
3. Jean-Sebastien Dea
Devils center
The Penguins castoff shoved it back in his former team's face by recording a pair of assists, the first two of his career. It was also his first multi-point game in the NHL.
THE GOOD
OK, it's a bit of a stretch to suggest that Oleksiak had a good game defensively. He and D-partner Olli Maatta were both a team-worst minus-2. But Oleksiak's goal at 9:24 of the first period tied the game at 1-1 and was the lone highlight to speak of for the home team:
It was Oleksiak's fourth goal of the season, tying him with Kris Letang for the team lead among defensemen. Oleksiak's 42-footer was a howitzer that was unscreened but still eluded the glove of Keith Kinkaid, who stopped the other 35 shots he faced.
Oleksiak flashed good promise in 2017-18 but his offensive prowess has been a revelation this season. He now ranks among the top 30 in scoring among all defensemen.
As welcome as some much-needed offense from the' defense is, they are still sorely missing Justin Schultz.
THE BAD
It would be hard to pin the Penguins' latest loss on Matt Murray. Again, the Penguins aren't going to win too many games on one goal. But the goalie didn't exactly help the cause either.
Butcher's goal at 2:24 of the first period was a bad omen of things to come. As he was pushing off left to right to get across to cover the Devils defenseman's wrist shot from the left circle, Murray simply lost his footing and fell over awkwardly, unable to cover the short side.
It was the kind of timely save that the Penguins could have used and one they've become accustomed to seeing from Murray.
"It's definitely been a frustrating stretch for sure," he said. "It's one of the most frustrating of my career."
Murray allowed four goals on 27 shots and was pulled after the second period. It was the second time in four games that Sullivan has given the goalie the hook.
"I think Matt's game has been similar to our team game, there's times when he's very strong and he's seeing the puck and he making saves, there's other times where it's been a struggle," Sullivan said. "I don't think Matt's any different from where our team is at right now. We have to find more consistency in our overall respective games."
THE PLAY
Down 3-1 in the second period but very much still in the game, the Penguins needed a spark, anything. It came in the form of Hornqvist who engaged former teammate Ben Lovejoy in some rough-housing in front of the New Jersey net.
Hornqvist later crosschecked Sami Vatanen in the jaw and later crushed the New Jersey defenseman in the corner that sparked what amounts to a donnybrook in today's NHL. There was plenty of pushing and shoving but nothing came out of it other than a New Jersey power play.
Instead of lighting a fuse under the Penguins, it had the opposite effect as Boyle cashed in with the power play goal, his third of the game:
"Everything is kind of frustrating," Hornqvist said. "It didn't go the way anybody wanted. We had high expectations for ourselves and our teammates, and no one's playing up to those expectations right now."
Crosby, who was also involved in the melee, appreciated the gesture by Hornqvist, the team's emotional leader.
"We've got to find ways to generate things and sometimes, whatever it is, whether it's emotion or a big hit, big goal, whatever it takes," Crosby said. "I think we just have to find a way together to get ourselves out of it. Sometimes it takes, together, doing something like that. But at least you're doing it together."
THE CALL
One of Monday's two officials was Furman South, a Sewickley native, Quaker Valley graduate and former Robert Morris University player from 2008-12.
The 30-year-old is in his third year as an NHL official, but this was his first game involving his hometown team. Unwittingly, he may have helped the Penguins but they would have needed a lot more help on Monday.
South whistled dead what appeared to be a loose puck when he lost sight of it in the goal crease in the first minute of the second period. The non-goal would have given the Devils a two-goal lead at the time.
South is the first Robert Morris alum to reach the NHL either as a player or official in the program's 15-year history.
Entering the season, he had worked eight NHL games in his career. He made his NHL debut April 6, 2017 in a Canucks-Coyotes game in Glendale, Ariz.
THE OTHER SIDE
Having lost their previous three games, the Devils entered Monday night's game in the same predicament as the Penguins.
The only difference for the Devils was that their streak came at the start of a marathon, seven-game road trip. However, they snapped their skid against the Penguins with an inspired effort from fourth liners Boyle and Dea. It was also their first road win of the season.
Last season, the Devils went 3-0-1 against the Penguins with their lone loss coming in overtime when Crosby batted a puck in that he hit off the post.
THE INJURIES
• Penguins: Derick Brassard, forward, will miss his fifth straight game with a lower-body injury. He is day-to-day. Justin Schultz, defenseman, is expected to miss four months after fracturing his leg Oct. 13 in Montreal.
• Devils: Jesper Bratt, forward, has been out since Oct. 4 with a fractured jaw suffered during practice. Steven Santini was also out with a broken jaw suffered Oct. 20 at Philadelphia and is on IR. Stefan Noesen, forward, missed his second game on IR after suffering an upper-body injury.
THE SCHEDULE
The Penguins will practice Tuesday at noon in Cranberry before leaving for Washington, where they will take on the defending Stanley Cup champion Capitals on Wednesday night.
THE COVERAGE
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MATT SUNDAY GALLERY
Penguins vs. Devils, PPG Paints Arena, Nov. 5, 2018 - MATT SUNDAY / DKPS