Blake Lizotte and Philip Tomasino scored, and Alex Nedeljkovic made 28 saves for the Penguins (11-13-4). Sidney Crosby played in his 1,300th NHL game.
Pittsburgh had a four-game winning streak end.
“Probably the worst game we’ve played in a month maybe,” Penguins coach Mike Sullivan said. “Everything we talked about before the game we did the complete opposite. We talked about managing the puck; we gave up six 2-on-1s and a breakaway. We talked about bringing physicality to the game; we didn’t touch anybody. It’s hard to win when you do things like that.”
Sullivan had no answer when asked if there were any signs that a game like this could happen on the heels of a four-game winning streak.
“Our intentions have to be different,” Sullivan said. “We have to have a willingness to play the game the right way. We didn’t manage the puck. We were on the wrong side of the puck all night long. We didn’t win a puck battle. There wasn’t collective effort. Our intentions weren’t in the right spot from the drop of the puck. That’s my observation.”
Lizotte put the Penguins ahead 1-0 at 6:19 of the second period when he scored on Shesterkin with a shot into the far side of the net from above the left hash marks.
Panarin, though, tied it 1-1 at 7:28.
Trocheck led a breakout to Alexis Lafreniere on the left side of the offensive zone. Trocheck cut to the net and Lafreniere found Panarin trailing into the zone. He scored with a glove-side shot from above the right hash marks.
“More decisive, yeah,” Trocheck said. “That’s what we’re trying to get to; more decisiveness on the breakouts.
Panarin beat the buzzer before the second intermission to give the Rangers a 2-1 lead, scoring with a wrist shot from the right circle at 19:58.
He said he didn’t know how much time was on the clock when he got the puck.
“I have so much speed I feel like,” Panarin said. “I don’t know how it looked, but I just take it to the middle and tried shooting. I didn’t know how many seconds.”
The goal was the result of another clean breakout, with Braden Schneider moving the puck up to Trocheck, who found Panarin behind him with speed coming into the zone. Panarin attacked the Penguins defense, went into the circle and scored.
“I don’t think the second one was the best shot,” Nedeljkovic said. “To be honest with you, I wasn’t really on the puck, I was just a little bit on his body. If I make one more shuffle to my left it honestly probably gets me in the elbow. That was a tough one to swallow especially the timing of it.”