The Penguins will tell you that there are no easy games in this league, and they will mean it.
And they will be correct.
They wouldn't even have to point to their 7-6 victory over the Devils Tuesday night at PPG Paints Arena, when New Jersey scored six times in the third period, as evidence.
But if there were to be a game in which a victory could be taken for granted, it almost certainly would shape up the way the one that pitted them against the Devils did.
The one that might go down as the first soul-crushing victory in the history of organized hockey.
The Penguins, you see, were facing a team that had lost its previous six games, including four in a row to its most bitter rival.
A team that hasn't been playing for anything more than its position in the draft lottery for weeks.
A team that, because of injuries and illness, was missing its No. 1 goaltender, its two best defensemen and three of its top four scorers.
Oh, and a team that, as part of its ongoing rebuilding plan, had jettisoned a couple of key veterans as the NHL trade deadline closed in.
Considering all of that, the only real surprise by the second intermission was that the Penguins were up by six goals, rather than eight or nine.
But all that transpired during those first 40 minutes, including a Brian Dumoulin goal on a backhander from the red line that will be a staple on blooper videos for decades to come, was overshadowed -- no, overwhelmed -- by what happened during the third period.
That's when a blowout victory for the Penguins mutated into a nightmarish 20 minutes that could have been scripted by Wes Craven.
Although the Devils were the ones forced to deploy a severely watered-down lineup, with the likes of goalie Mackenzie Blackwood, defensemen P.K. Subban and Ty Smith and forwards Pavel Zacha and Jesper Bratt unavailable, it was the Penguins who looked for much of the period as if they had only a casual acquaintance with the sport.
Tristan Jarry, who had seemed en route to his first shutout of the season, suddenly was beaten by shots that seemed quite stoppable. Lapses in execution and decision-making were rampant. The Penguins played so far on their heels that they nearly ended up on their backs.
And down for the count.
Under the circumstances, it was all rather difficult to believe.
And, from Mike Sullivan's perspective, even tougher to explain.
"I've never been through an experience like that," he said, later added that, "Obviously, not a lot went right for us."
It was scant consolation that the Penguins' late-game implosion allowed them to make a little history by becoming the first NHL team to win a game despite being outscored by five or more goals in the third period. Until Tuesday, teams that did that were 0-270 in the regular season and 0-9 in the playoffs.
What's more, the six goals New Jersey got in the third tied the Penguins' record for goals-allowed in a period at home; it was the eighth time in franchise history they've given up that many, and the first since the New York Rangers did it on Nov. 16, 1996.
Evan Rodrigues, though, didn't seem to care much about the historical footnotes the game generated. Not when its outcome had some more practical and timely implications.
"It's two points," he said. "At the end of the day, that's all that matters."
Indeed, the victory moved the Penguins to within one point of Washington and the New York Islanders, who are tied for first place in the East Division. It also reduced their magic number for clinching a playoff berth to 12.
What made the Devils' third-period rampage all the more remarkable was that for the first two periods, New Jersey looked like it was making a retroactive attempt to secure the draft rights to Mario Lemieux. Indeed, had the Devils performed like that a little more often in 1983-84, Lemieux might well have spent his career in the Meadowlands.
The Penguins were quick to determine the kind of shots that would give New Jersey's starting goalie, Scott Wedgewood, trouble on this night -- those would be the ones that went on goal -- and Mike Matheson, Bryan Rust, Dumoulin and Jeff Carter put pucks past him during the first 18 minutes of the game.
The most improbable was Dumoulin's, since "scoring a goal" was nowhere on the list of things he hoped to accomplish when he lofted a backhander into the New Jersey end.
"When it left my stick, I kind of felt like it had some bounce and some roll," Dumoulin said.
Enough of each that the puck made it to Wedgewood -- and between his legs -- before word reached him that Dumoulin actually wasn't looking to score.
New Jersey coach Lindy Ruff, perhaps reacting to a sixth sense that told him his team had a six-goal period in it, opted to leave Wedgewood in until the intermission, after which he was replaced by Aaron Dell.
The only thing that changed then, however, was whose goals-against average would become more bloated, as Teddy Blueger and Rodrigues scored to put the Penguins up by six.
But the course of the game was inexorably altered with 10 seconds to go before the second intermission, when Kris Letang -- apparently upset about being leveled by New Jersey forward Nate Bastian in the neutral zone -- was penalized for interfering with Miles Wood.
Thirty-one seconds into the third, Jarry was called for interference, and New Jersey needed just 10 seconds of the resultant two-man advantage to get its first goal. And, it seemed, renewed energy.
"It gave them a little bit if juice," Sullivan said. "And, to a certain extent, they're playing with a real free spirit at that point. They've got nothing to lose."
Well, except the game, which still looked to be pretty much of a lock at that juncture.
And so it was until goals by Yegor Sharangovich (short-handed), Bastian, Jack Hughes and Nolan Foote had sandwiched one by Sidney Crosby to get New Jersey to within 7-5 with more than six minutes to go in regulation.
"We let up, a decent amount, and they pushed real hard," Rust said.
And when Andreas Johnsson made it 7-6 with 39.4 seconds to play, Sullivan and his assistants must have been wondering if they could order a 55-gallon drum of antacid.
Oh, the Penguins ultimately managed to hang on, but it's impossible to predict what the aftershocks of their epic third-period letdown will be.
Will it erode the confidence that underpins any successful team, or will it be a valuable lesson that will be absorbed without causing any lasting damage.
"We can talk forever on why and what went wrong or how," Sullivan said. "But the reality is that we know we can't do that moving forward."
Their next step in that move forward will be Thursday, when they face the Devils in the second of three consecutive games at PPG Paints Arena.
How that game will play out is hard to say, but the consensus appears to be that it probably won't have anything to do with how the one Tuesday unfolded.
"Every game is a new game," Rust said. "It doesn't matter if you win, 10-1, the game before, or you lose, 10-1. You win, 2-1, or lose, 2-1. .. You have to learn your lessons and keep moving forward, trying to get better."
MORE FROM THE GAME
• New Jersey's loss made it the second team to be eliminated from playoff contention. Coincidentally enough, the Penguins also eliminated the first, Buffalo, on Saturday.
• Crosby not only scored the game-winning goal, but went 17-6 on faceoffs.
• Subban was scratched after registering a positive coronavirus test. Additional tests will be needed to determine if it was a false positive.
• Sullivan's players weren't the only ones guilty of some curious things during the third period. Sullivan, for example, didn't use his timeout until New Jersey had cut the Penguins' lead to 7-5 at 13:56, long after it had become apparent that his team had lost its focus and was allowed the game to get away from it.
• In their history, the Devils have lost 17 games when scoring six goals. Three of those defeats have come against the Penguins.
• The Penguins have allowed a power-play goal in six of their past eight games.
• This was the sixth time in franchise history New Jersey has scored six goals in a period, and the first since April 6, 1996 at Hartford.
THE ESSENTIALS
• Boxscore
• Highlights
• Scoreboard
• Standings
• Statistics
THE THREE STARS
As selected at PPG Paints Arena:
1. Sidney Crosby, Penguins
2. Evan Rodrigues, Penguins
3. Yegor Sharangovich, Devils
THE INJURIES
• Center Evgeni Malkin is week-to-week because of an unspecified lower-body injury sustained March 16.
• Winger Brandon Tanev is week-to-week with an unspecified upper-body injury sustained April 3.
• Forward Frederick Gaudreau is week-to-week with an unspecified lower-body injury sustained on April 11
• Forward Kasperi Kapanen is week-to-week with an unspecified lower-body injury sustained March 24 and hasn't skated yet.
THE LINEUPS
Sullivan’s lines and pairings:
Jake Guentzel-Sidney Crosby-Bryan Rust
Jared McCann-Jeff Carter-Jason Zucker
Zach Aston-Reese-Teddy Blueger-Evan Rodrigues
Colton Sceviour-Mark Jankowski-Sam Lafferty
Brian Dumoulin-Kris Letang
Mike Matheson-Cody Ceci
Marcus Pettersson-John Marino
And for Lindy Ruff's Devils:
Janne Kuokkanen-Jack Hughes-Yegor Sharangovich
Andreas Johnsson-Nico Hischier-Marian Studenic
Miles Wood-Michael McLeod-Nathan Bastian
Nolan Foote-Jesper Boqvist-Nicholas Merkley
Ryan Murray-Matt Tennyson
Jason Siegenthaler-Damon Severson
Will Butcher-Connor Carrick
THE SCHEDULE
The Penguins will practice Wednesday at noon at the UPMC Lemieux Sports Complex before facing the Devils Thursday at 7:08 p.m. at PPG Paints Arena.
THE CONTENT
Visit our team page for everything.
