NEWARK, N.J. -- Bryan Rust has scored 88 regular-season goals in the NHL.
It's safe to assume he enjoyed the first 87 more than the one he got at Prudential Center Thursday night.
It had nothing to do with aesthetics -- his goal actually was quite nice, a wrist shot from the top of the left circle -- and everything to do with impact.
Of which it had none.
Not unless rubbing a little of the luster off New Jersey goalie Scott Wedgewood's night was deemed to be a significant accomplishment.
Which it was not.
When Rust's shot eluded Wedgewood with 4.5 seconds left in the third period, it served only to deflate Wegewood's save percentage a bit and to whittle the Devils' margin of victory over the Penguins to 3-2.
Which is why Rust didn't raise his arms when he scored. Or celebrate. Or even smile, for that matter.
After all, there's not much to get excited about when, for the second time in three nights, you're seconds away from losing to a goalie who has spent most of his pro career in the minor leagues.
The first half of that unlikely tag team was Boston rookie Dan Vladar. He made his first NHL start Tuesday and stopped 34 of 35 shots in the Bruins' 2-1 victory over the Penguins at PPG Paints Arena.
Thursday belonged to Wedgewood, who rejected 40 of the 42 shots the Penguins threw at him.
Not bad for a guy who was making his 33rd career appearance in the NHL after playing 190 games in the American Hockey League and 49 more in the ECHL.
And who wasn't even supposed to get off the bench Thursday, being pressed into service only when the scheduled starter, Mackenzie Blackwood, aggravated an unspecified upper-body injury during warmups.
Wedgewood said his pregame preparation consisted of taking "8 or 10" shots as warmups were winding down, but the Penguins graciously allowed him to ease into the game by rarely testing him during the first period.
He shouldn't have taken it personally, though. They rarely did much of anything during those 20 minutes, staging a veritable clinic in sloppy execution, inattention to detail and general disinterest.
Even so, they managed to reach the intermission trailing only 1-0, and actually began to generate some positive momentum as the second period progressed.
And so it was that when Rust was assessed a minor penalty for holding New Jersey defenseman Dmitry Kulikov in the offensive zone at 8:18, it looked as if one good penalty-kill might give the Penguins the boost they needed to seize the upper hand in this game.
Would it have, really?
That's hard to say, because just 24 seconds after Rust went to the box, P.K. Subban hammered a slap shot past Penguins goalie Tristan Jarry from just inside the blue line to make it 2-0.
Giving up power-play goals is nothing new for the Penguins -- they've allowed at least one in each of the past three games and six of the past nine, and rank 25th in the league in penalty-killing efficiency -- but Subban's goal was particularly costly because of how it short-circuited the Penguins' surge that had been building.
"Obviously, that penalty-kill goal against, that was a tough one," Mike Sullivan said. "We had opportunities to do a better job there. We didn't get it done."
Subban's shot made it into the net, at least in part, because Devils forward Miles Wood set an effective screen in front of Jarry. And just one minute, 37 seconds later, Travis Zajac of New Jersey parked in front of Jarry's crease and deflected a Damon Severson shot past him to make it 3-0.
The Penguins' inability to clear opponents from around their net -- or to at least do a little damage-control by tying up their sticks -- is not only a recurring problem, but one that's costing them points on a regular basis.
"I think that's where they won the game today, essentially," Marcus Pettersson said. "They were harder to play against in front of their net than we were."
That's a significant issue for a team whose margin for error for getting into the Stanley Cup playoffs in the highly competitive East Division likely falls somewhere between miniscule and microscopic.
The Penguins seemed to stress getting pucks on the New Jersey net, and their shots total was the highest of this season.
Wedgewood, though, got a pretty good look at most of the 42 that came his way, which is part of the reason he turned aside so many of them.
"Maybe he saw a little too many of those pucks," Jake Guentzel said.
Guentzel had revived the Penguins with 12.5 seconds to go in the second period, when he steered in a Kris Letang shot during a power play, but that was all they were able to get past Wedgewood until Rust's goal in the waning seconds of regulation.
The Penguins, already missing forwards Jason Zucker, Jared McCann and Teddy Blueger, were forced to play without Evgeni Malkin, who was put on injured-reserve after suffering an apparent leg or knee injury when he was hit by Bruins defenseman Jarred Tinordi Tuesday.
Although being down so many contributors can't be good for the group's morale, but Pettersson said that losing Malkin and Blueger in the past few days was not a factor in the Penguins' sluggish start.
"I think we came into the game with the same confidence as we always do," he said. "We know we have guys out of the lineup, but we have guys stepping in with a ton of energy. I think you go into a game every time thinking that you're going to win. Otherwise, there's not much point in playing."
Perhaps, but because Malkin and Blueger were unavailable, Sullivan had to do reconstructive surgery on every forward unit except the Guentzel-Crosby-Rust line, including getting Frederick Gaudreau into a game for the first time since he joined the Penguins during the offseason.
The unfortunate reality for the Penguins is that Sullivan probably saw little to tempt him to resist tinkering with his forward combinations when the Penguins and Devils meet again Saturday at 1:08 p.m.
"We need to be better, obviously," he said. "We didn't get the result we wanted, so it's not good enough. We need to be better, as a group. We'll take a look at our team and see what kind of adjustments we make from here. But certainly, we need to be better."
If they'd like to have something to smile about, anyway.
MORE FROM THE GAME
• Devils center Pavel Zacha left the morning skate early and did not dress for the game. New Jersey also was missing center Nico Hischier, who is expected to miss several more weeks while recovering from nasal-cavity surgery.
• Crosby had a game-high eight shots on goal. Strangely, two defensemen -- Pettersson and Mike Matheson -- tied for the second-most on the Penguins with four each.
• Devils center Jack Hughes, the No. 1 pick in the 2019 draft, opened the scoring with a sensational shot, throwing a puck over Jarry's shoulder and under the crossbar from below the left circle at 10:02 of the first period.
• Brandon Tanev, who got a boarding major and game misconduct for a hit on Tinordi Tuesday, obviously wasn't afraid to throw his body around in his return to the lineup. He was credited with a game-high five hits.
• Crosby handled 36 faceoffs, going 22-14. The rest of the Penguins combined to take 30, winning 13 of them.
THE ESSENTIALS
THE THREE STARS
As selected at Prudential Center:
1. Jack Hughes, Devils
2. Scott Wedgewood, Devils
3. P.K. Subban, Devils
THE INJURIES
• Center Evgeni Malkin is being evaluated for a lower-body injury sustained March 16.
• Forward Jason Zucker is out "longer term" with an unspecified lower-body injury sustained Feb. 23.
• Center Teddy Blueger is out "longer term" with an unspecified upper-body injury sustained March 15.
• Defenseman Mark Friedman is day-to-day with an unspecified upper-body injury sustained March 4.
• Forward Jared McCann is day-to-day an unspecified upper-body injury sustained March 7.
THE LINEUPS
Sullivan’s lines and pairings:
Jake Guentzel-Sidney Crosby-Bryan Rust
Brandon Tanev-Evan Rodrigues-Kasperi Kapanen
Zach Aston-Reese-Mark Jankowski-Sam Lafferty
Colton Sceviour-Frederick Gaudreau-Anthony Angello
Brian Dumoulin-Kris Letang
Mike Matheson-Cody Ceci
Marcus Pettersson-Chad Ruhwedel
And for Lindy Ruff's Devils:
Janne Kuokkanen-Travis Zajac-Yegor Sharangovich
Jesper Bratt-Jack Hughes-Kyle Palmieri
Miles Wood-Mikhail Maltsev-Nathan Bastian
Andreas Johnsson-Michael McLeod-Nikita Gusev
Dmitry Kulikov-P.K. Subban
Ty Smith-Damon Severson
Ryan Murray-Sami Vatanen
THE SCHEDULE
The Penguins are scheduled to practice Friday at 1:30 p.m. in Newark before facing the Devils again Saturday at 1:08 p.m.
THE CONTENT
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