In Newark, the New Jersey Devils ended up on the wrong end of a 3-2 score on Sunday night.
The Pittsburgh Penguins survived one of the least entertaining games of the season, 3-2.
Tristan Jarry made 17 saves for the Penguins win.
It was the seventh straight victory for the Pens who improved to 17-8-5.
“I just like the compete,” Pittsburgh head coach Mike Sullivan said. “I like the attitude. These guys, I think, they really care for one another. I think they play hard for one another. Just the compete and the resilience that I think the group has displayed here throughout most of the season.”
Pittsburgh held off a late surge from New Jersey.
Janne Kuokkanen and Nathan Bastian were the New Jersey strikers.
“Some nights, maybe a week or two ago, we were completely out of it, and then nights like tonight, we easily could’ve found a way to win,” Bastian said. “There’s little things. Another shorthand goal (given up) is obviously super frustrating for us, but we played pretty good the whole night. It would have been nice to be rewarded for tonight.”
New Jersey dropped to 10-15-5.
Teddy Blueger and Danton Heinen scored to give the Penguins a 2-0 lead.
“It wasn’t pretty,” Blueger said. “I don’t think we had our best. We were pretty good at times, but it just seemed like there wasn’t a whole lot of rhythm, especially offensively for us. So it was just kind of digging in deep and finding a way to get it done.”
After Kuokkanen scored for New Jersey, the Pens regained the two-goal advantage off a strike from Mike Matheson.
“There wasn’t a whole lot of flow to the game,” Matheson said. “It just seemed like we really couldn’t get things going in a lot of ways, so it was one of those games. It was on the road and not our best effort, but we were still able to get away with a win, which is huge.”
New Jersey is 3-12-3 in their last 18 games.
Bastian scored off the power play to get New Jersey within, but there was nothing left to the rally.
“Getting out of it is not going to be easy, but once we do, it will feel good,” Bastian said. “Christmas, it’s a nice little chance to hit the reset button, but obviously we don’t want to look past our next game and the chance we have to play there.”
Jon Gillies made 19 saves in the New Jersey loss.
“I just want to contribute,” Gillies said. “I think that when you’re leading up to things and you’re kind of in the mix but the group has been together for the whole year, and you kind of haven’t really done anything yet, I think that’s the part (getting that first start with a new team) that is nice to kind of have it out of the way, but I just got to try and contribute points next time.”
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