Would you believe that during the 21 years Pittsburgh Penguins’ Captain Sidney Crosby has been in The NHL, he’s never faced the New Jersey Devils in the playoffs? In fact, the Devils are one of only two Eastern Conference teams Crosby has never faced in the postseason, the other being the Buffalo Sabres. (Thank you to MSG Networks’ skilled trivia man Leo Scaglione Jr. for that fun factoid).

With that in mind, on Thursday night at Prudential Center, the Devils hosted the Penguins in their penultimate home game of the season. The result, a 5-2 loss for the Garden Staters, is as close as the Jersey Faithful will get to playing against Pittsburgh’s legend in the biggest games of this season. And speaking of the biggest games, the Penguins officially clinched a playoff berth with the victory. 

Jake Allen started in net for New Jersey and stopped 25 of the 29 shots he faced. Meanwhile, at the other end of the ice, Stuart Skinner started for the Penguins and saved 19 of 21. 

New Jersey took the ice without Luke Hughes in the lineup after the team announced earlier Thursday that it was shutting down the D-man so he could have surgery on an undisclosed upper body injury and get ahead of his offseason rehabilitation program. 

Moments into the game, Timo Meier came flying down the middle of the ice for an early Devils’ chance. However, his shot rang off the post and stayed out. Then, 4:53 into the first period, Bryan Rust scored from the right face-off dot, off a cross-ice pass from Egor Chinakhov, to give the Penguins a 1-0 lead. 

New Jersey went to a power-play for the first time in the game when Anthony Mantha was called for a delay of game penalty by putting the puck over the glass at 5:55. The Devils did not register a shot on goal during their man-advantage. 

Jake Allen saved the Devils from a multi-goal deficit with multiple brilliant saves throughout the rest of the first period, including a point-blank stop on Rckard Rakell in the slot. 

“We had a good first five minutes,” Allen began. “But after that, we were on our heels the rest of that period. They haven’t played in four days. Sometimes those legs are a little bit behind you. We had our looks there and then they showed why they’re in a playoff spot where they are. I mean, those three lines are tough to handle. It’s really impressive to watch. They made us pay. We talked about earlier today, they’re probably the hottest offensive team in The NHL. They’re so creative. They have so many options…we let ’em get behind us a little bit.”

The Penguins controlled play for the first 9:45 of the middle period, racking up a five to one shots on goal advantage during that time. Then, at 9:51, Dougie Hamilton found Paul Cotter streaking up the ice. New Jersey’s veteran defenseman fed Cotter, who beat Skinner with a backhander to tie the game 1-1.

“I thought we did a pretty good job of coming back,” Cotter said. “I think our team has done a really good job of that lately, of just, you could call it hanging in there, but getting to our game pretty quickly. They have a franchise over there that’s been good for a very long time, so it’s gonna be hard if they get the lead like that to try and come back and take control. But I thought we tried to do that as good as possible.”

The tie didn’t last long, though. 1:52 after Cotter’s goal, Tommy Novak scored to give the Penguins a 2-1 lead. Then, just nine seconds later, Chinakhov scored to give the Penguins a 3-1 lead.

“The first one of that sequence, we just lose structure in the offensive zone,” Sheldon Keefe said. “When you lose structure, it gets a team like that, you kinda open up the ice for them. It’s hard to stop it. And then it’s just a simple, routine face-off assignment that, thousands of times, it’s done correctly…The guy gets behind you and probably their most dangerous and explosive forward. So, obviously, that’s a major turn in the game.”

Continuing the period of quick strikes, Jack Hughes potted his 26th goal of the season just 3:15 after Chinakhov’s goal, to draw the Devils within 3-2. That would be as close as they would get.

The Penguins continued to control play in the third period and while they didn’t score on their power-play, courtesy of a Simon Nemec tripping penalty against Elmer Soderblom at 9:02 of the final period, they did salt the game away when Erik Karlsson scored an empty-netter with three minutes to go to give Pittsburgh its 5-2 margin of victory. 

“It’s tough when you know that your season’s done, regardless of wins or losses,” Allen said. “But, at the same time, your mindset should never change. Whether it’s a preseason game, playoff game, reasoning that we’re eliminated, that’s a thing that comes with a bit of maturity and we need that in our game right now. 

“We wanna finish strong. We want to have a lot of pride and guys are playing for a lot of different things. Obviously, we’re playing for our jersey for one, but guys have different motivations and there should be no reason that we shouldn’t…still going all out here in the last three games. And it doesn’t mean we’re gonna go 3-0, but at the same time, just give ourselves a chance and play some confidence and end the season on a good note.”