In one corner of the Penguins' dressing room, Patric Hornqvist -- usually a voice of reason in good times and bad -- was anything but, swearing up a storm about something.
While in another corner, Kris Letang was speaking in hushed tones, shouldering the blame for this latest loss, 4-2 to the Flyers, Saturday night at PPG Paints Arena that was their second in a row and 12th in 16 games.
Both men know the drill by now, and neither was wrong.
This one, however, felt different.
After believing they had made serious strides over the past 10 days or so, the Penguins took yet another step backward in this star-crossed season. It wasn't that they lost that was most bothersome, but rather how.
"We beat ourselves tonight," Mike Sullivan said tersely afterward.
Allowing breakaways and short-handed goals have been recurring themes for the Penguins this season and both were primary factors. Through 24 games, the Flyers had been one of just four NHL teams that had failed to score short-handed but, of course, they hadn't yet faced the Penguins.
Just 49 seconds into the third period, Dale Weise got their first, beating Casey DeSmith through the five-hole on a short-handed breakaway, snapping what had been a 2-2 tie:
That goal, Weise's second of the season, proved to be the difference.
It was the NHL-worst sixth short-handed goal allowed, already doubling their total from a year ago. To be fair, that is a long way from the team-record 22 that the 1984-85 club allowed but, hey, there's still a lot of season to be played.
As talented as the assembled collection of Sidney Crosby, Evgeni Malkin, Phil Kessel, Hornqvist and Letang is offensively, the NHL's eighth-best power play simply has to have a modicum of defensive awareness.
"We don't have a conscience defensively when we're on the ice on the power play," Sullivan said. "It's simply inexcusable. We've talked about it and talked about it. Just can't happen. It's hard to win, hard to win when your power play gives up a goal like that in a game like this."
Would it have been great had DeSmith made a timely saves when his team really needed it?
Sure. But the game-winner was the result of Weise simply getting behind Letang, the power play quarterback and the last man back.
"I should have been a little more cautious," Letang said. "Not even play the power play, just play the defensive coverage."
Letang, who has been outstanding this season, picked a most inopportune time for his worst game to date. His high-risk, high-reward style simply came back to bite the Penguins.
It did in the first period when Travis Konecny's breakaway at 5:42 tied the game after Crosby had spotted the Penguins a 1-0 lead just 39 seconds in:
Again, Letang simply lost Konecny after the Flyers' forward flew the zone.
Sullivan didn't name names. He didn't have to. He called it only a "lack of awareness."
“I’m a big part of those mistakes,” Letang admitted later. “That can’t happen. They had a lot of breakaways and guys slipping behind us. A big part is my fault.”
True, but the Penguins clearly had their chances against untested Flyers goalie Anthony Stolarz, who was making just his seventh career start.
At the 12:18 mark of the third period, the Penguins' PK -- which, to its credit, has had 15 consecutive kills, including an 0-for-3 performance Saturday -- had a breakaway of their own after Letang had taken consecutive tripping penalties.
Down 3-2, Derek Grant skated in all alone on Stolarz ... but he shot weakly into the goalie's chest protector:
Oh, and by the way, the Penguins were one of those four teams still without a shorthanded goal.
Then, with DeSmith off for an extra skater, the Flyers put the game away on Jake Voracek's empty-netter after he poked the puck past, you guessed it, Letang with 22 seconds remaining:
The Penguins, now 10-10-5, have consecutive home games coming up this week against the Avalanche and Islanders. Unfortunately, they're 5-6-2 at PPG Paints Arena. Their 12 points on home ice are the second-fewest in the league.
Following this loss, Sullivan said it's back to the drawing board, but after 25 games -- more than a quarter of the season -- the Penguins again look to be going sideways.
"It's discouraging," the coach said. "I thought we had made such great strides. We have high expectation of our group. We're all responsible, our coaching staff included. So we've got to make sure we do the necessary things."
What will those be? Stay tuned.
THE ESSENTIALS
• Boxscore
THREE STARS
My curtain calls go to …
1. Anthony Stolarz
Flyers goalie
Unheralded rookie stopped 30 of 32 shots for his third career win and first of the season.
2. Andrew MacDonald
Flyers defenseman
Still not worth $5 million a season, but he tripled his season output with three assists.
3. Wayne Simmonds
Flyers right winger
His first-period fight lit a fire under a team that had come out flat.
THE INJURIES
• Penguins: Matt Murray, goalie, has been out with a lower body injury since Nov. 17. … Matt Cullen, center, has also been out since Nov. 17 with a lower-body injury. … Justin Schultz, defenseman, is expected to miss four months after fracturing his leg Oct. 13 in Montreal.
• Flyers: Corban Knight, center, missed his 13th game with a dislocated collarbone and is expected to be out another three months. … Brian Elliott, goalie, has been out since Nov. 16 with a lower body injury.
THE GOOD
Shout this from a Mount Washington pod: Jamie Oleksiak is never to be a healthy scratch again.
As I (ahem) correctly forecast, Simmonds did, indeed, come looking for a fight in the aftermath of the Flyers' shakeup this week, and all concerned had to know it would be Oleksiak who answered the bell just 1:45 into the game. Because, really, as Simmonds suggested later, who else is there?
Which Oleksiak did, beautifully ...
Catch the part where he furiously waved off the linesmen?
The Penguins don't need an enforcer, but that makes them lucky to have Oleksiak on their side.
Though the Flyers credited Simmonds for sparking their comeback, Sullivan was adamant with me that Oleksiak did the right thing in taking the fight.
"It gave us life, too," Sullivan said. "We had a great start. For me, they can talk all they want."
In this rare and lengthy fight, which lasted over one minute, Oleksiak and Simmonds exchanged quite a few haymakers.
"He got me good, he got me pretty good," Simmonds said. "I thought it was a good tilt anyway. He's a big boy."
Credit the much bigger Oleksiak for the unanimous decision, but also credit Simmonds for hanging in after getting bloodied. The Flyers power forward left for repairs but returned later in the first period.
Sullivan has made Oleksiak a healthy scratch twice this year. There can't be a third.
THE BAD
Not to pick on Zach Aston-Reese, the kid did a lot of good things, including a couple of crushing hits on Michael Raffl and then Ivan Provorov.
But both those good came in the second period after Aston-Reese failed to respond to a scrum with just under two minutes remaining in the first period that involved Malkin and Weise. Any team would gladly take Malkin off the ice for two minutes. Which is exactly what Weise did.
Not sure if someone had a talk with the 24-year-old during the first intermission but Aston-Reese emerged from the dressing room with a snarl. That is exactly what the Penguins are looking for from the 6-foot-1, 204-pounder. They just could have used it sooner.
THE PLAY
Short-handed goals are killers and that clearly proved to be the case with Weise's third-period goal.
It was the final of three breakaways that DeSmith faced Saturday night.
"One out of three is not good enough," he said. "At least two of three or three of three. Got to keep working on it."
Whether it's been shootouts or breakaways, DeSmith has been leaky one-on-one this season. But Weise said he didn't have any book on the Penguins' young goalie. He just didn't want to repeat his mistake from six games earlier.
"I didn't want to deke," he said. "After missing in Tampa, I had a flashback there. I had to shoot this one. Fresh ice, it worked out well."
It was Weise's first short-handed goal in his nine-year career.
THE CALL
Not even three minutes apart, Letang was called for tripping Konecny at 6:34 of the third and then Simmonds at 9:04. There's really no argument to be made. Both were legit calls.
But with the Penguins trailing by a goal, they were inexplicably bad penalties to take.
THE OTHER SIDE
A year ago, the Penguins swept the season series by outscoring the Flyers 20-11, scoring five goals in each game. Then, they took out the Flyers in six games in the first round of the playoffs.
Well, now the Flyers have earned their first win in Pittsburgh since March 26, 2017.
Saturday's win came six days after the team fired Ron Hextall as general manager and after they had lost six of their previous seven. And it came with Stolarz, the sixth different goalie the Flyers have used in their last six regular-season games against the Penguins, in goal.
In vintage Flyers fashion, it came with them playing a more physical brand of hockey, which included the Simmonds fight and Radko Gudas absolutely crunching Crosby twice in a shift late in the second period.
Hitting Crosby once is difficult enough, but it was especially satisfying for the Czech defenseman:
"I think we've got to have that attitude," Simmonds said. "Playing Pittsburgh, I think it's a no-brainer. Probably our biggest rival. The last few years, they've been a bit better than us. But we want to prove that we're a good team and we need to start making our comeback . We can't wait anymore. We have to play with that feisty attitude."
The Penguins will face their cross-state rivals three more times this season, the next of which will be Feb. 11 at Wells Fargo Center.
THE SCHEDULE
The Penguins are scheduled off on Sunday and will practice Monday at 11 a.m. at PPG Paints Arena where they will host the Avalanche at 7:08 p.m. on Tuesday.
THE COVERAGE
Visit our Penguins team page for everything.
MATT SUNDAY GALLERY
Penguins vs. Flyers, PPG Paints Arena, Dec. 1, 2018 - MATT SUNDAY / DKPS