Mike Sullivan wasn't exactly dancing on air about the Penguins' defensive performance in going down to the Devils, 3-2, Tuesday night at PPG Paints Arena. Not when the opponents turned out 38 shots on goal, attempted a total of 61, took off on far too many odd-man breaks and generally made a nuisance of themselves.
As the coach spoke afterward, "I don't think we played as tight a game as we need to play. I thought there were moments in the game where we were just trying to outscore them rather than outplay them."
It's a fair assessment, by any reasonable accounting.
But what Sullivan evidently finds robustly unfair is isolating on anyone in this regard, even the hugely struggling Matt Hunwick. And he made that quite clear when asked afterward about Hunwick, who scored once but before that was on the ice for New Jersey's first two goals, as well as the overall third pairing with Jamie Oleksiak.
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