OK, so the situation was something like this.

The Penguins were playing a team that trailed them by 15 points in the Atlantic Division standings.

That they had beaten in all four previous meetings this season, and that had lost seven consecutive games at Mellon Arena.

And that, oh yeah, lost its best goal scorer and a good young defenseman before the first intermission.

Digest all of that data, and it becomes clear that finding a way to lose to the New York Rangers Friday night couldn't -- or, at least, shouldn't -- have been easy for the Penguins.

But they did it.

And not necessarily when New York forward Olli Jokinen, using defenseman Kris Letang as a screen, beat goalie Marc-Andre Fleury from the top of the right circle 62 seconds into overtime for the deciding goal in the Rangers' 3-2 victory.

A pretty compelling case could be made that the Penguins lost the game -- or, at least, a good chance to win it -- during the first half of the second period, when they sleepwalked through just about every shift while the Rangers were morphing a 1-0 deficit into a 2-1 lead.

"They were first on pucks," Penguins defenseman Brooks Orpik said. "We kind of waited for them to get possession, then pressured them in our zone. We gave them way too much time and space to make plays."

That's a pretty good formula for failure, even against an opponent that, by most measures, was overmatched.

"If we play the right way, they shouldn't have a chance to win," left winger Matt Cooke said.

But the Penguins didn't, at least for that half-period, and so the Rangers did, in what will be their final visit to Mellon Arena unless the teams meet in the playoffs.

"I don't give a damn about the building," Rangers coach John Tortorella said. "I just wanted to win."

His team did and, in the process, dropped the Penguins' record to 36-22-3, and guaranteed they can do no better than tie for first place in the Atlantic when the Olympic break begins Monday. They trail New Jersey by two points, and each team has one game left.

Fleury ended up as the goalie of record after Brent Johnson, the starter, suffered what appeared to be a leg or groin injury late in the second period. He left after stopping 20 of 22 shots.

Coach Dan Bylsma declined to divulge the nature or severity of Johnson's injury, which he said will be evaluated today.

The Rangers, meanwhile, played most of the game without winger Marian Gaborik and defenseman Michael Del Zotto.

Gaborik, who got a 21-stitch gash on his right thigh when he was cut by the skate of goalie Henrik Lundqvist during practice Tuesday, took six shifts during the opening period, but did not return for the start of the second.

Del Zotto got what Rangers officials described as a "significant contusion" when he fell on the toe of Penguins center Evgeni Malkin's skate 2 1/2 minutes into the game and did not return.

Just a few minutes after Del Zotto went off, Sidney Crosby gave the Penguins a 1-0 lead with his 40th of the season, a career high, by taking a feed from linemate Bill Guerin and beating Lundqvist from above the left hash at 6:42.

Brandon Dubinsky of New York tied the score at 1:28 of the second by flipping a shot past Johnson from below the hash marks after being set up by Chris Drury.

Vaclav Proposal put New York in front, 2-1, at 9:44 on a shot from the inner edge of the left circle after the Rangers, although his goal seemed to awaken the Penguins and the game developed a particularly nasty edge after a fight between Matt Cooke of the Penguins and Drury at 10:35.

Crosby pulled the Penguins even during a power play at 3:53 of the third, as he deflected in a Sergei Gonchar shot for his 41st. That goal salvaged a point for the Penguins, but didn't prevent the Rangers from winning eventually.

Even if, from the Penguins' perspective, that shouldn't have been an option.

"They didn't have a chance to win, and we let them," Cooke said. "And that's frustrating."

Costly, too.

Penguins Plus, a blog by Dave Molinari and Shelly Anderson, is featured exclusively on PG+, a members-only web site from the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. Our introduction to PG+ gives you all the details.