NEWARK, N.J. -- In the end, the result was almost -- almost -- secondary.
Don't get me wrong, the Penguins were plenty happy with their 4-3 overtime victory over the Devils on Thursday night. The smiles in the visitors locker room provided plenty of evidence of that. Any time you can get two points against a divisional foe and move a little closer to clinching a playoff berth, it's reason to celebrate.
But Mike Sullivan's marching orders earlier in the day were a slight variation on the old "it's not whether you win or lose but how you play the game" adage. The coach calls it "compete."
TAP ABOVE FOR BOXSCORE, STANDINGS, VIDEOThat was something that, to a man, the Penguins said they didn't do nearly enough -- if at all -- two nights earlier in Detroit. When his team competes, Sullivan was saying seven hours beforehand, he's supremely confident that the two-time defending Stanley Cup champions can still beat anyone.
Now, not quite sure if I'd put the Devils in the upper echelon of the NHL right now, not yet anyway, but they will likely be a playoff team and they had tormented the Penguins in the previous three games of the season series.
Regardless, the Penguins treated Thursday as a playoff game. And for a game in late March, it certainly resembled one before an announced sellout crowd of 17,625 at the Prudential Center. It was tight, there were shots and chances on both sides, but, in a departure from Penguins games of late, not exorbitantly so.
"It was a hard-fought game, it was a close game," Sullivan said. "It was one of those games that had kind of a playoff-type feel to it. Not a lot of ice out there. It was a stingy game that way."
Under Sullivan, winning is formulaic. If you pay attention to details, and do the little things, you know, compete, you should win.
I mean, you want to talk about compete, a sense of urgency, a passion or whatever you want to call it, see that Jamie Oleksiak pokecheck with 7:15 left in the second period?
The defenseman needed every inch of his 6-foot-7 and extra-long stick to knock the puck out of harm's way on this 2-on-1 break between Miles Wood and Michael Grabner.
"Yeah, the whole team played well even when we got down a goal there (in the third), I thought we responded well," Oleksiak was telling me. "We played the right way. We played with a little chip on our shoulders and it paid off in the end."
Oh, and did you see this Matt Hunwick scrap against a much bigger Miles Wood later in the second period?
Hunwick hadn't played since March 1, a healthy scratch following the Boston massacre. He'd only been in two fights in his 11-year career, the last of which came in 2010 against Evander Kane ... of the Atlanta Thrashers.
"That was awesome," said Oleksiak, who normally handles the rough stuff. "He really held his own. That was a great fight. Something he needed to do. Shows the grit the team can have."
And you want to talk about grit?
There was even a Phil Kessel check in the first period. No, seriously. Those things are as rare as Sasquatch sightings. Too bad the official scorer at the Rock didn't care to count it as Phil's 11th hit of the season. That guy doesn't get his respect, but we all saw it.
The Penguins bared their souls on Thursday, overcoming a third-period deficit to force overtime and then winning it just 19 seconds in on Sidney Crosby's 28th of the season.
OK, now comes the hard part. They have to build on it.
The win over the Devils extended the W-L-W-L trend that has plagued the Penguins the last 11 games. They have two games this weekend against the Canadiens and Capitals. If they don't take with them the lessons from their win over New Jersey, about competing and paying attention to detail, it all goes for naught, as Kris Letang was telling me:
"This is how we have to play here from now on," said Patric Hornqvist, who tied the game at 3-3 at 11:26 of the third. "It’s going to be a fun run here. We know what we have to do to be successful and we showed it tonight."
1. PK streak continues.
No, it wasn’t all rosy. This marked the fourth straight game that the Penguins have yielded a power play goal. That’s four goals on 10 chances, which just isn’t going to work in the playoffs when any goal can potentially turn a series.
True to form, the one shot that the Devils got — on their three chances — went in the Penguins’ net when Taylor Hall scored his 34th of the season at 14:41 of the second, tying the game, 2-2.
But to be fair, the Penguins 18th-ranked PK actually looked pretty good and you have to give credit to the Devils for making some plays. Josh Jooris, recalled earlier in the day due to the Derick Brassard injury, made a hard clear but Will Butcher made an outstanding play just to keep the puck in the zone. He slid the puck over to Hall at the right dot, where he beat Matt Murray with a hard wrister. Murray had no chance, mainly because he never saw it. Patrick Maroon, all 6-foot-3 and 225 pounds of him, was parked right in front of the Penguins goalie.
It was a tough break for Jooris, who otherwise had another solid showing with two shots in just 6:00.
2. Big response from a little player.
Paired with Riley Sheahan and Hornqvist on a new-look third-line (again, due to Brassard’s injury), Conor Sheary scored his 16th goal of the season at 12:44 of the first.
Most importantly, he scored just 25 seconds after Kyle Palmieri had given the Devils a 1-0 lead. It was exactly the kind of quick response that the Penguins needed.
“I think it’s really important to have success in this league is to just stay the course and not get affected by any of the momentum swings or the high and lows,” Sullivan said. “The reality is that sometimes things don’t go your way out there and it’s how you respond.”
It was a huge goal for the diminutive Sheary, who now has points in four of the last six games (two goals, two assists). After an almost season-long slumber, Sheary is starting to awake. You notice him more and more, for all the right reasons, too. That’s largely because he’s going to the net again, as he did on his goal, a redirect on a 2-on-1 with Hornqvist.
3. The Geno and Phil sequel is not equal to the original.
No question, Evgeni Malkin and Kessel can absolutely work wonders together. They showed that at 18:43 of the third when the American set up the Russian with a nice pass from behind the net to Malkin in the slot. Though Malkin couldn’t convert, it reminded why it’s so, so tempting to recreate the magic that those two made last spring.
But there’s good reason why those two have largely been on different lines this season. Yes, Sullivan wants to spread out his offense over three lines, but he also wants to have a defensive conscience on each.
While both players are better defensively than their reputations would lead to believe, they’re also capable of moments like this:
On Palmieri’s opening goal, Kessel and then Malkin coughed up the puck at their own blueline against rookie Nico Hischier, who fed Palmieri on a breakaway. It was remarkably similar to Hall’s overtime goal last week when Hischier worked over Kessel to set up the game-winning goal.
So be careful what you wish for.
4. Reunited and it feels so good. At least for one night.
The Letang-Brian Dumoulin separation didn’t last long, did it? Try two games.
The familiar duo was back together from the drop of the puck against the Devils. And it was like old times for Nos. 8 and 58.
Letang scored his eighth of the season, wiring a rolling puck past Keith Kinkaid at 6:59 of the second period to give the Penguins a 2-1 lead. Dumoulin had assists on that goal and Hornqvist’s tying goal, giving him four points in the last four games. Not bad for a defensive defenseman.
Letang also assisted on Crosby’s winner in OT, first stealing the puck and then caroming a pass off the boards to the captain to spark a 2-on-1 break.
Obviously, there’s a familiarity and a chemistry between Dumoulin and Letang. The former allows the latter to play his game, clearly better than Oleksiak could ever hope to imagine.
Letang hasn’t had a great season by any stretch, but if the Penguins are going to win another one of these Cups, they’re going to need their best defenseman to be just that. But this talk of Letang’s demise at age 30 is a little exaggerated. He chewed up another 25:45 on Thursday, a team high.
Letang still didn’t regain his spot on the top power play unit, which probably isn’t a bad thing. Justin Schultz isn’t as flashy, but there’s something to be said for his reliability and solid decision-making when he’s the only defenseman on the ice.
5. Running with the Penguins? Maybe not.
John Hynes called the Devils’ third period a “teachable moment.” But he could have been speaking of either of his team’s last two third periods against Pittsburgh.
Last week it was blowing a 3-1 lead while garnering just four shots over the final 20 minutes of regulation. On Thursday it was antagonizing not just any opponent, but the two-time defending champions and their captain.
The Devils are a good team and will be better down the road, but the last two games should put to ease a lot of concerns about the Penguins and how they would stack-up against New Jersey in a seven-game series.
It would certainly be entertaining, as the last two games have shown, but they have also shown that the Penguins — despite their flaws — are a superior team in every phase: Offense, defense, goaltending and special teams.
When they are engaged as they were Thursday, no team would want to face them.