Apr 2, 2013 4 min read

PITTSBURGH — Not only is the Pittsburgh Penguins’ 15-game winning streak over, it ended with a whimper at the Consol Energy Center on Tuesday night.

The Penguins couldn’t match the effort of the Buffalo Sabres and fell 4-1 for their first loss since Feb. 28.

“It’s a tough feeling tonight,” forward Jarome Iginla said. “You want to keep (the streak) going.”

It almost seemed as though the Penguins’ recent injury losses – Sidney Crosby, Kris Letang and Paul Martin – all caught up to them at once.

“We just weren’t very good tonight,” defenseman Matt Niskanen said. “The execution was poor. The battle level was poor.”

The Penguins also had their 12-game home winning streak end.

After Iginla’s first goal since joining the Penguins tied the score at 1 at 13:27 of the first period, the Sabres scored the next three goals, and put the game away with a dominant second period.

How big is the gap between the two teams? While the Penguins had a winning of 15 games, the Sabres won just their 14th game of the season.

The Sabres are 13th in the conference standings and rumored to be contemplating more moves at today’s trading deadline after dealing veteran defensemen Jordan Leopold and Robyn Regehr.

Buffalo, however, didn’t look like a team in turmoil.

The game started inauspiciously when Niskanen’s turnover led to a shorthanded goal by Buffalo’s Kevin Porter during a four-minute Penguins power play.

The Penguins scored on the same power play when Iginla punched in a pass from Chris Kunitz.

But the Sabres reclaimed the lead before the first period ended. Steve Ott beat Tomas Vokoun on the stick side from the top of the left circle with a hard shot off Jason Pominville’s pass.

Buffalo outshot the Penguins 12-3 in the second period and scored twice in a span of 1:07 early in the period.

Vokoun stopped Cody Hodgson’s shot, but Hodgson picked the rebound off Vokoun’s pads, took the puck behind the net and tucked it in on a wraparound to give the Sabres a 3-1 lead at 2:21 of the second.

Then Porter got his second of the game on a fortunate bounce. His centering attempt to Bryan Flynn hit Penguins defenseman Deryk Engelland’s skate and deflected through Vokoun’s legs.

That led coach Dan Bylsma to send Marc-Andre Fleury in to replace Vokoun. It was Fleury’s first action since last Tuesday when a blow to the head forced him out of a game against Montreal. He stopped all 16 shots he faced and could start tonight against the Rangers in New York.

Vokoun’s shutout streak ended after 173:06, and the Penguins’ team shutout stretch was halted at 218:48.

The Penguins managed just nine shots over the last two periods.

“We came in and had a solid game against a great team,” Buffalo defenseman Mike Weber said. “They have Crosby and a couple of other guys out, but they still have a heck of a team.”

The Penguins’ top line of Evgeni Malkin, Iginla and James Neal had a good first period, but goalie Ryan Miller was strong against them. Miller beat the Penguins for just the second time in his last 11 games against Pittsburgh.

Coach Dan Bylsma made it clear he saw what happened as a failure by his team more than anything exceptional that the Sabres did. Asked about the high frequency of turnovers, Bylsma immediately started shaking his head when asked in Buffalo did anything special to cause that.

“That was our puck management and our puck execution tonight,” Bylsma said.

The Penguins killed five penalties for 10 minutes, but even that was no consolation. Niskanen said that much shorthanded play just drains a team and takes away from offense.

“You lose a little steam,” Niskanen said.

The Penguins came back from a 3-1 deficit in a game at Philadelphia during the streak, but that kind of comeback wasn’t in the cards on Tuesday.

“Tonight we didn’t have much of an answer,” Niskanen said. “We didn’t have much push back and not much urgency.”

Notes

Brooks Orpik set a team record for Penguins defensemen by playing his 622nd game with the team. He moved ahead of Ron Stackhouse. … Iginla had five shots on goal in the first period. … The Penguins had allowed just nine goals in the previous 11 games. … Tonight’s game against the Rangers starts a home-and-home series that will conclude in Pittsburgh on Friday.