Pens' Sullivan astounded by penalty calls vs. Sens: 'It was ridiculous'

The Pittsburgh Penguins spent much of Wednesday's 5-4 overtime loss to the Ottawa Senators killing off penalties. Pittsburgh was shorthanded nine times, giving up four power-play goals along the way that allowed Ottawa to claim victory.

Penguins head coach Mike Sullivan was at a loss trying to describe his team's performance following the defeat.

"It's pretty tough to assess a game like that when half the game is special teams," Sullivan said after the game. "There was no flow to it, there was no five-on-five, it was ridiculous."

In addition to the nine power plays for Ottawa, the Senators were also called for five penalties, leaving just over half of the game played at five-on-five.

Sullivan's main gripe postgame appeared to be with the officiating on the night.

"Let's just say I question a fair amount of the calls," Sullivan added.

While he took issue with the calls against his team, Sullivan also recognized that giving up four power-play goals is hardly a recipe for success and gave credit to his penalty killers for trying to fight through the adversity.

"We gave up four goals against, it's not good enough," Sullivan said. "We battled hard but when you're spending a third of the game trying to kill penalties it puts an awful lot of burden on those guys."

The loss dropped Pittsburgh to 22-15-7 on the year as the Pens currently sit in fifth place in the Metropolitan division. They return to action Friday, once again against the Senators.