Devils 3 – Penguins 1

Coming off a thrilling 7-4 win over the Capitals Friday night, the Penguins (29-22-3, 61 pts) had an expected letdown in a 3-1 loss to the New Jersey Devils (27-16-8, 62 pts) on Saturday night.

Head coach Mike Sullivan, though, wasn’t letting his surging team off the hook.

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“We got outplayed,” Sullivan said. “It’s pretty simple. They wanted it more. They won every loose puck battle. They were quicker with their second man to the puck battles. For whatever reason we didn’t have any jump tonight. We didn’t seem to have our legs, but we certainly got outplayed. We deserved to lose.”

The Penguins play resembled the group from earlier this season where they struggled mightily in the second night of back-to-backs.

Pittsburgh was out-shot 29-10 after two periods and New Jersey went on to outshoot the Penguins by 22 (38-16) in the game.

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Shot attempts were 75-41 in New Jersey’s favor with the Devils racking up 38 scoring chances and 21 high danger chances in the win.

Yet, the Penguins we’re still in position late to steal a point against a back-up goaltender.

After Evgeni Malkin netted his 29th goal of the season to cut the Devils lead to 2-1, it was a one goal game until a Travis Zajac goal, 3:35 later in the third and Pittsburgh also had a disallowed goal in the loss.

“The criteria of goalie interference is so vague, it’s difficult to interpret right now,” Sullivan said as NHL coaches are becoming increasingly frustrated with the lack of clarity on what is interference. “We obviously thought it was close enough that it was worth the challenge,” Sullivan indicated as the team felt Ben Lovejoy’s stick interfered with his own goalie first.

Malkin scoring his 29th and Casey DeSmith with a 35 save performance were among the Penguins few bright spots in the loss.

From the Penguins end they could not have been surprised that New Jersey got up for this game.

A team that’s made as big of a jump as New Jersey has and still trying to prove itself as a legitimate playoff contender, the Devils brought a playoff level type work ethic and mentality to the table for a team that was eyeing a very big two points on home ice against the defending champs.

New Jersey with the win move a point ahead of the Penguins in the standings and have three games in hand on Pittsburgh.