Holtby allowed three goals on 14 shots in his 40 minutes of work. He didn't look like his usually stellar self on Jake Guentzel's marker, which made it 3-1 for the Penguins with less than four minutes left in the second period.
Holtby is a finalist for the Vezina Trophy this season, and he won the award - given annually to the NHL's top goaltender - in 2016.
The Vancouver Canucks shared a quick video message from their president of hockey operations Saturday night after landing the fifth overall pick despite holding the second-highest odds to pick first.
Linden insisted the Canucks will still select "a great player that's going to contribute to the foundation of this team for many years," adding a reminder that Vancouver has six picks in the top 120.
Still, Saturday's result has to be disappointing for the Canucks, who slide out of the top two - likely losing out on the chance to draft one of Nolan Patrick or Nico Hischier - while falling to fifth for the second straight year.
Vancouver selected London Knights defenseman Olli Juolevi with that pick in 2016.
The New Jersey Devils general manager admitted afterwards that he enjoyed watching Nolan Patrick and Nico Hischier this season, but "never did I really think we'd be in a position to draft one of these guys," according to TSN's Mark Masters.
Shero will have the opportunity to choose one of the two phenoms after the Devils went from having the fifth-highest odds to the top spot Saturday night.
"(It's) surprising," he said. "You know what your odds are."
The Devils haven't made the playoffs since losing the Stanley Cup Final to the Los Angeles Kings in 2012, but Shero believes New Jersey's lottery luck will help the organization get back to its previous winning ways.
"A franchise like us, this is what we need," he said. "The Devils haven't won anything in a little while ... we have to take advantage."
New Jersey wasn't the only team to make an unexpected leap Saturday night. The Philadelphia Flyers made the most significant jump, going from having the 13th-highest odds of getting into the top three to securing the second overall selection.
Shero wore a tie to the lottery that Devils forward Adam Henrique apparently thought was red.
"Actually, it's orange, so maybe that helped Philly," Shero said with a smile when asked about his sartorial choice.
The Devils haven't picked first overall since moving to New Jersey. When they were known as the Colorado Rockies, the franchise selected defenseman Rob Ramage with the No. 1 pick in 1979, before moving east in 1982.
The Ottawa Senators forward performed in grand fashion Saturday in Game 2, netting four goals - including the overtime winner - to give his club a 2-0 series lead over the New York Rangers.
Pageau got the Sens on the board in the first, then cut his club's two-goal deficit in half with 3:19 to go in the third. He followed up with a hat-trick tally with 1:02 to go, and then iced it in double overtime.
Suffice to say, he was the hero.
"What can I say? The kid is a legend," defenseman Marc Methot told TSN's Ian Mendes postgame.
Methot wasn't alone:
Dion Phaneuf, on four goals for No. 44: "Legendary game."
"Four goals, that's absolutely sick," head coach Guy Boucher said, according to Bruce Garrioch of The Ottawa Sun. "It couldn't happen to a better person."
Pageau, who scored 12 goals in the regular season, and now has five in the playoffs, is already looking ahead.
"I will remember that for the rest of my life but I don't want to stop there," he said.
Pageau became just the second player in NHL history to score four goals including the overtime winner in a playoff game, and he'll look to somehow top the performance Tuesday in Game 3.
As absolutely no one in their right mind suspected, the New Jersey Devils won the NHL Draft Lottery on Saturday night, with the Philadelphia Flyers and Dallas Stars rounding out the top three.
Those ping pong balls. They're hard to predict.
Amid all the shock and awe, hockey Twitter was at an all-time high:
The biggest losers of the night were the Colorado Avalanche and Vancouver Canucks, who were not rewarded in the slightest for occupying the bottom of the standings.
The New Jersey Devils won the NHL draft lottery Saturday night, securing the first overall pick in June. The Philadelphia Flyers and Dallas Stars also made significant jumps, and will pick second and third overall, respectively.
The Devils had the fifth-highest odds, entering the lottery with an 8.5 percent chance of landing the top pick, while the Flyers and Stars made even bigger leaps up the draft board.
Philadelphia had only a 2.4 percent chance of getting the second overall pick, and the Stars came into the lottery with only a 6.4 percent shot at getting the No. 3 selection.
The Colorado Avalanche had the best odds of receiving the first overall pick, but fell to fourth, while the Vancouver Canucks slipped to fifth despite having the second-highest odds of nabbing the No. 1 selection.
It was also a disappointing draw for the expansion Vegas Golden Knights, who, along with the Arizona Coyotes, came in holding the third-highest odds of moving up to the top spot.
Here's the full order for the first 15 picks in the 2017 draft:
Pick
Team
1
New Jersey Devils
2
Philadelphia Flyers
3
Dallas Stars
4
Colorado Avalanche
5
Vancouver Canucks
6
Vegas Golden Knights
7
Arizona Coyotes
8
Buffalo Sabres
9
Detroit Red Wings
10
Florida Panthers
11
Los Angeles Kings
12
Carolina Hurricanes
13
Winnipeg Jets
14
Tampa Bay Lightning
15
New York Islanders
The draft will take place June 23 and 24 at the United Center in Chicago.
George McPhee wasn't in the room when the future of his organization began to take shape.
The Vegas Golden Knights general manager was unable to make it to the draft lottery in Toronto due to a "significantly delayed" flight from Washington, D.C., to Toronto, the club announced Saturday.
Golden Knights hockey operations analyst Tom Poraszka took McPhee's place.
The NHL arranged for the GM to go to the Verizon Center in Washington to be part of the lottery remotely from Game 2 of the second-round playoff series between the Capitals and the Pittsburgh Penguins.
Vegas had the same odds of landing the first overall pick as the NHL's third-worst team, the Arizona Coyotes, at 10.3 percent, but fell to sixth overall.
The New Jersey Devils general manager confirmed his intent to contact the Russian star in an interview with Sportsnet's John Shannon ahead of the draft lottery Saturday night.
"I plan to reach out next week maybe to his agent ... I'll reach out next week and see if there's any substance to the speculation of Ilya coming back," Shero said.
Last weekend, Sportsnet's Elliotte Friedman reported Kovalchuk was considering a return to North America.
The former NHL superstar's KHL contract expired when his SKA St. Petersburg won the Gagarin Cup earlier this month.
The Devils still hold his rights, because he was a Devil when he left the NHL in 2013 and because he remains on the league's Voluntary Retirement list. He's free to sign with New Jersey, but if he wants to play for another team, that would require approval from every other NHL club.
He can't be traded from the Devils to another team unless he signs with New Jersey first, so a sign-and-trade would be possible, as TSN's Bob McKenzie explained earlier this week.