BUFFALO, N.Y. _ Saturday's game against the Buffalo Sabres at KeyBank Center brought with it a chance for the Penguins to finish their road trip on a high note.
Sure, Wednesday's loss in Washington was a stinker. But the Penguins had seemingly learned their lessons during a come-from-behind win over the Islanders.
The bruised and battered and injured Sabres should have been an easy win, but the Penguins failed to finish their road trip on a high note.
Their offense generated plenty of shots on goal but not enough legitimate scoring chances and dropped a 2-1 decision in a shootout to former coach Dan Bylsma's team.
Cal O'Reilly scored the only goal for Buffalo, while Sidney Crosby, Evgeni Malkin and Kris Letang all came up empty.
Although he skated on his own Saturday morning and appears close to returning from a concussion, Patric Hornqvist missed a second consecutive game, and that much was noticeable.
The Penguins accumulated plenty of shots on Anders Nilsson, 50 in all, but they didn't make him nearly as uncomfortable as they'd like, something Hornqvist does with the best of them.
One slice of good news for the Penguins was that Marc-Andre Fleury had a strong showing after a couple of suspect ones, including a five-goals-25-shots relief effort Wednesday.
Fleury stopped 32 of 33 shots and was at his best in overtime, with two stops on Kyle Okposo and another on Sam Reinhart.
Despite the solid performance, Fleury's seven-game winning streak against the Sabres came to a close.
Crosby scored a power-play goal to pull the Penguins even at 5 minutes, 46 seconds of the third period, but they were never able to pull in front.
Again a problem for the Penguins were penalties, including the recurring theme of Brian Dumoulin's hit from behind on Marcus Foligno in the second period.
Dumoulin received two minutes for cross-checking _ he wasn't trying to injure Foligno, but he probably should have received more _ and also was called for holding 16 seconds into the period.
Malkin and Brian Gionta nearly came to blows in the third period over the hit, with both sides receiving a pair of minors. In total, the Penguins took six minor penalties. Not the 10 they had in Washington but still not good.
Letang had an end-to-end chance during an exciting overtime period, but the Penguins were also careless with the puck in their own zone, at one point leading to a quality chance for Kyle Okposo that Fleury stopped.
Fleury made an even better stop on a one-timer from O'Reilly to Sam Reinhart, then snared a wicked shot from Okposo for another quality save.
In a lot of ways, Saturday's game mirrored the one the night before in Brooklyn. The Penguins started strong, smothering the Sabres early, then took their foot off the gas in the second.
Only this time they had penalties to blame, as Dumoulin was called for holding and Conor Sheary tripping within the first 10 minutes of the second period.
Carl Hagelin had a pair of solid chances, once on an individual rush that he cracked off the glass and another on a shot pass from Letang that he couldn't corral.
Malkin's line contributed to an extended run of possession for the Penguins late in the period, forcing Buffalo to take its timeout with a bunch of tired skaters.
The only scoring in the first came from an extremely unlikely source. Buffalo had just 11 goals in its previous nine games, and William Carrier had never before scored in the NHL.
Except there he was, in the left circle, from 19 feet, with a nifty redirect of a Taylor Fedun shot at 8 minutes, 16 seconds.
Bryan Rust had tried to outlet the puck through Matt Cullen, but it never made it out of the Penguins zone.
Coach Mike Sullivan talked before the game about wanting his power play to stick with it when things weren't working and the Penguins got a chance to work on that when Sam Reinhart caught Letang up high with his stick at 12:26 of the first.
The Penguins generated only one shot, an innocuous, 43-foot wrister from Crosby.
