CHICAGO -- Penguins coach Mike Johnston isn't shy about his distaste for shootouts as a way to end games.
So when a game comes down to the best-of-three skill competition -- such as Sunday did -- he's more concerned about his team's play over the course of the game, rather than what the scoresheet says.
And while the Penguins' 2-1 loss against Chicago Sunday at United Center may not have been the desired result, Johnston said it was still a positive performance.
"I liked our game from start to finish," Johnston said. "I thought we had good defensive responsibility against a very dynamic team."
The Blackhawks' dynamism was on full display in the shootout, when stars Jonathan Toews, Patrick Kane and Patrick Sharp put pucks past Penguins goalie Marc-Andre Fleury, who was so upset after Sharp's winner that he turned around and swung his stick against the goal post in disgust.
David Perron and Sidney Crosby scored for the Penguins, but Blackhawks goalie Corey Crawford stopped Kris Letang on the final attempt to give Sharp the chance to win it.
"It's almost unfortunate it wasn't a playoff game where you could see a real winner," Perron said. "They got the two points, but I think we're really satisfied with how we played the whole 65 minutes."
The most satisfying part for the Penguins must have been the team's play in the third period. Three days after blowing a 3-0 third-period lead in Ottawa, they battled back from a 1-0 third-period deficit against the Blackhawks, who are one of the best teams in the league at closing out games. This was their second shootout win of the season against the Penguins, after a 3-2 victory Jan. 21 at Consol Energy Center.
Chicago remained undefeated when leading after two periods, but the Penguins made them work for it.
"We just wanted to stick with our game," defenseman Rob Scuderi said. "It's a 1-0 game. We played well for the most part. You can't start to panic and fall off the reservation. It's time that we had some patience and just keep playing the right way. I thought every single guy in here stuck to the program."
It didn't take long for that third-period patience to pay off, as Nick Spaling leveled the score 3:54 into the final period. After Beau Bennett slithered his way through the Blackhawks defense and got a shot off on Crawford, Spaling came charging in from behind to pick up the rebound and make it 1-1.
"I probably would've passed it to him if I had known he was here," Bennett said. "But good things happen when you get the puck to the net and luckily it went right to his stick."
Bennett, in particular, shone for the Penguins Sunday despite being off the ice as a healthy scratch as recently as last week. He was constantly around the puck and led all players with nine shots.
"I thought he had one of his better games in a while here," Johnston said. "Really for him, it's about managing the puck well and when the puck was on his stick tonight he made good things happen."
The third-period comeback was necessary because of Niklas Hjalmarsson's second-period goal that gave the Blackhawks a 1-0 advantage. After a choppy first period that was characterized more by the 11 stoppages for icing than any sort of compelling hockey, Hjalmarsson fired a shot from the right point over Fleury's glove for the lead at 3:22 of the second period.
With the one point gained, the Penguins moved to two points of the Islanders for the lead in the Metropolitan Division.
Much like his coach, though, Scuderi was more concerned with the game allowing the Penguins to test their skills against an annual Stanley Cup contender in the Blackhawks. If this one game can be any indication, the Penguins are right there.
"You're not there yet but you know that mid-April is not too far around the corner," Scuderi said. "You want to test yourself against the best measuring sticks that are possible in this league. There's five or six teams that are really top-notch and this is one of them."
Inside
■ Penguins split Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin on separate power-play lines. Notebook, Page C-4.
Sam Werner: swerner@post-gazette.com and Twitter @SWernerPG.
First Published: February 16, 2015, 5:00 a.m.
