Joel Blomqvist earned the start tonight, even after Tristan Jarry rejoined the team Sunday following his conditioning stint in Wilkes-Barre/Scranton of the American Hockey League, meaning the Penguins return three goaltenders. The 22-year-old rookie had been playing very well and deserved the opportunity.

Unfortunately, Blomqvist was unable to build on the momentum from Friday’s win in Washington, allowing three goals in the first 10 minutes. He would have liked to recover the first two. Alex Nedeljkovic, who started the night as a substitute, took some time to find his game after entering the contest in relief. The Stars doubled their lead before the first half ended.

“All you can do is take one shot at a time and try to focus on the next shot, the next puck. It’s hard, it’s difficult,” Nedeljkovic said. “Obviously, he can get away from you quickly and things snowball from there. It’s a shame we had one of those nights tonight.”

That said, the Penguins missed several Grade A opportunities. Before the game, coach Mike Sullivan said Dallas’ ability to create offense off of rushes is “really good…we’re going to have to make sure we’re firm with our transition defense. But the Penguins still had trouble reducing those looks.

“We knew they were a dangerous team and we didn’t deal with it,” Ryan Graves said. “We’re trying to play with a structure and sometimes we just get away from it. It’s been a work in progress and when we stay on top of pucks and are responsible with our decisions and make plays in the right areas, we’re a good team. “It’s hard to play against us… but as we move away from that, that brings us problems.”

After the Penguins returned to the locker room, Crosby said there’s not much to say when the score looks like this.

“You just have to get over it. You can’t give up. “You can’t give up,” the captain said. “You know, we put ourselves in that position. It’s a difficult situation to put yourself in. We have to keep playing and see what happens. On top of that, you can’t change the period. It happened and you have to find ways to overcome it.”

Nedeljkovic settled in during the second half and made several excellent saves. Beauvillier found that goal thanks to a set-up from Valtteri Puustinen, and his line with Blake Lizotte had some good moments. Nedeljkovic said they have to look at it as if the remaining 40 minutes were 1-1.

“Obviously, get angry about it, get frustrated, be whatever you want to be. Tomorrow will be a new day,” Nedeljkovic said. “You wake up and move on. We will see video. It won’t be fun for anyone. A loss is a loss. It doesn’t matter if you lose 1-0 or 10-1. It sucks, obviously. It’s very humiliating. “It’s a very unpleasant feeling, but at the end of the day it’s just a defeat.”