Penguins hold off Devils after nearly blowing 6-0 lead

Having spent the better part of three decades playing or coaching hockey, Mike Sullivan has seen quite a bit during his professional existence.

But Tuesday offered something new.

Not for Sullivan, necessarily. But the entire 103-year history of the NHL.

During a far-too-narrow 7-6 home victory against the New Jersey Devils at PPG Paints Arena in which the visitors scored all six of their goals in the final 20 minutes, the Penguins became the first team in NHL history to win a game while being outscored by five or more goals in the third period.

According to Elias Sports Bureau, teams that yielded five-plus goals in the final frame were 0-270-0 all-time during the regular season.

The Penguins made history. Just not in a way they wanted to.

“I’ve never been through an experience like that,” said a somewhat flabbergasted Sullivan during a video conference. “It’s not an easy one to react to. … Not a lot went right for us. We certainly know that. We’ve got to be a whole lot better to close out games and not put ourselves in those types of positions.”

Presumably, racing out to a six-goal lead through two periods would have been a secure enough position to avoid any scares like what the Penguins endured Tuesday. But a simply wretched third period allowed the Devils to exploit some of the Penguins’ shortcomings.

“There’s been times where teams come back and score goals on us,” defenseman Brian Dumoulin said. “But at the end of the game, we scored seven, they scored six, and we ended up getting the win. We’ve got to learn from it and watch video and see what we can improve on.”

The Penguins were up 4-0 after the first period thanks to goals by defenseman Mike Matheson (his fifth of the season at 3:49), forward Bryan Rust (his 18th at 8:04), defenseman Brian Dumoulin (his third at 8:49) and forward Jeff Carter (his ninth of the season and first as a member of the Penguins at 17:56).

The Devils pulled starting goaltender Scott Wedgewood to open the second period and replaced him with backup Aaron Dell. But that maneuver did little to stymie the Penguins, who saw forward Teddy Blueger score his sixth goal only 1:12 into the middle frame.

That was followed up by a power-play score from Evan Rodrigues – his seventh – at the 15:18 mark.

Seemingly, by that point, the Penguins had this contest all but wrapped up.

But the third period happened.

Devils forward Nico Hischier opened things up with a goal on a five-on-three power-play sequence only 41 seconds into the third. Then forward Yegor Sharangovich got his 11th goal short-handed at 5:14.

A deflection goal by Devils forward Nathan Bastian – his third – made it a 6-3 game at the 8:48 mark.

Penguins forward Sidney Crosby seemed to snuff out the Devils’ momentum with his 18th score at 11:15 of the third, but the Devils persisted.

Forward Jack Hughes got his 10th at 12:52 then was followed up by rookie forward Nolan Foote scoring his first career goal at the 13:56 mark.

With Dell pulled for an extra attacker, the game’s final goal was scored by forward Andreas Johnsson, who got his fourth at the 19:19 mark.

The Penguins turned away any final spasms of attack the Devils offered over the final 41 seconds to claim a somewhat improbable victory.

“It’s two points at the end of the day,” Rodrigues said. “At this time of year, that’s all that matters. Obviously, we have to have a better third, but it’s two points and we move forward.”

Goaltender Tristan Jarry made 24 saves on 30 shots to claim a win unlike any in NHL history.

“Obviously, something clearly went wrong,” Rust said. “We were definitely lucky enough and fortunate enough to be able to get out of there with two points in regulation.”