PITTSBURGH — The Penguins hoped to follow up their impressive win over the Edmonton Oilers by taking care of business Saturday against a fellow wild card hopeful in the East.

Instead, in the words of Erik Karlsson, the Penguins “lay an egg” on their home ice.

In their worst performance since their Thanksgiving upswing, they got smacked by the Ottawa Senators in a 5-0 loss. The Penguins were unable to recover after an ugly opening period and allowed the Senators to pull within a point of them in the standings.

The Penguins went 0 for 4 on the power play in the first 20 minutes. They gave up three odd-man rushes, per Sportlogiq, along with a shorthanded goal. And they got outscored 3-0 by an Ottawa squad that had won only one of its last seven games.

The home team did not put up much of a fight after that and lost for the fifth time in six games. Leevi Merilainen stopped 29 shots to get the first shutout of his career.

“I mean, it sucks, obviously,” Karlsson said of their lack of a response. “We lost our control and our temper and we focused on a lot of things not involved in playing hockey and playing our game. That’s on us and that shouldn’t happen, no matter what happens in the game. There are some things we can control and some we can’t.”

The Penguins found themselves in a 2-0 hole just 5:14 in. The Senators scored on their first shot when Tyler Kleven fired a puck from the point that hit Noel Acciari’s stick and changed course on Alex Nedeljkovic — who was later pulled from the game. After a failed coach’s challenge by Mike Sullivan, the Senators doubled the lead.

Sullivan tried to get the first goal taken off the board due to goalie interference but instead put the Senators on the power play. Shane Pinto scored late in that penalty.

“We thought it was a really fair challenge,” the coach explained. “We don’t win the challenge. They score on the power play and it’s a two-goal swing. That’s why I’ve never been a big fan of the rule, quite honestly. It’s pretty punitive for something that is a difference of opinion. In other words, [the call is] not black and white, right?”

After venting about that, Sullivan was sure to note that there was a ton of time left in the game after the Senators took the 2-0 lead, and his team simply got outplayed.

The Penguins and their fourth-ranked power play had opportunities to get back in it during a penalty-filled melee of a first period. But Pinto scored on a 2-on-1 rush while the Senators were shorthanded to make it 3-0 in the final minute of the period.

The boo birds were out in full force at PPG Paints Arena as the Senators pushed it to 5-0 in the second period. The visitors scored on a Sidney Crosby slashing penalty that carried over from the first period, then another before Nedeljkovic got pulled.

The Penguins pretty much packed in after that. After convincingly beating the Oilers on Thursday, they were a frustrated bunch with no explanation for Saturday’s no-show.

“We were just not good at all,” Karlsson said. “It wasn’t a couple of guys. I think it was the entire lineup — myself included. We did not have the determination or the will to play a tough team today that we are going to be battling down the stretch.”

Need a bigger box

There were 15 penalties called in the first period, crowding the penalty boxes on a couple of occasions. At one point, the Senators had three guys in there steaming it up.

Seven minutes into the game, a helmetless Michael Bunting and Senators pest Nick Cousins incited a riot — at least by the standards of today’s NHL. PPG Paints Arena roared with a mix of outrage and approval as both teams converged around them.

Nedeljkovic stirred things up when he tripped a Senators player after a whistle. The goalie got an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty but Pittsburgh still got a power play.

Penalties were also assessed for boarding, slashing and a high stick in that period.

It made for entertaining theater. But it failed to give the Penguins any momentum.

“Maybe we got a little bit overemotional,” Bryan Rust said, “and that affected us.”

Crossing the line?

Bunting may have been looking to spark the Penguins, who down two goals at the time, when he lost his lid and went after Cousins instead of going back to the bench. Bunting was assessed two penalties for his antics but it remained 5-on-5 after that.

When he went back to the box for tripping, that gave him three penalties on the day and six in the last five games. One was a needless roughing penalty in the third period against Edmonton that fortunately did not come back to bite the Penguins.

Bunting is at his best when he toes that line. But he may need to be reined in a bit.

Sullivan said the coaching staff has had “those conversations” with Bunting at times.

“I thought the penalty that he took [Thursday] was not a prudent decision on his part. Bunts plays the game hard. He has that edge to his game. He yaps a lot on the ice. That’s part of his game,” Sullivan said. “So it all depends on the circumstances. It’s the types of penalties, right? It’s the timing of them and things of that nature.”

Rare power outage

The Penguins could have made this a game had they connected on one of their four first-period power plays. But they wasted those and finished the day 0 for 6 with a shorthanded goal against — the first one they’ve allowed since the season opener.

The Penguins struggled on their zone entries, getting stuffed at the blue line on five of their 13 attempts, per Sportlogiq. And they had only 1:50 of offensive-zone puck possession and just two shots from the slot on the power play against the Senators.

“It was similar to our five-on-five game, just our game overall,” Crosby said of that unit’s struggles. “We just didn’t execute well. I don’t think there was one thing honestly. A couple of times it was entries. Didn’t win some battles. It was different things.”

Ice chips

— Evgeni Malkin missed his third straight game due to an upper-body injury. Both Philip Tomasino and he got in an individual on-ice workout on Saturday morning.

— Saturday was the 10th time this season that the Penguins allowed their opponent to score on their first shot. Nedeljkovic has been in goal for three of those games.

— Nedeljkovic earned his second start in a row by playing so well Thursday against Edmonton. But he made just 12 saves on 17 shots before Tristan Jarry relieved him.

— Pittsburgh’s penalty kill, which ascended into the NHL’s top 10 before Christmas, has struggled since the holiday break. That unit gave up two more goals Saturday.

— Saturday’s game had a 4 p.m. start time. They were also dominated in their other afternoon game this season, their 6-3 loss to the Jets in Winnipeg back on Oct. 20.

Coming up

The Penguins will get right back at it Sunday, when they host Jake Guentzel and the Tampa Bay Lightning at PPG Paints Arena. First puck-drop is scheduled for 5 p.m. ET.

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