PITTSBURGH — Standing at his locker a few minutes after the Penguins saw their six-game winning streak conclude after a surprising loss against one of the NHL’s worst teams, Sidney Crosby contorted his body to show what little contact he made with Calgary Flames goaltender Devin Cooley in the game’s deciding moment.

Officials Francois St. Laurent and Alex Lepkowski didn’t see it that way.

Tommy Novak’s tying goal in the third period was waved off by the officiating crew, and the Penguins, in one of their more underwhelming performances of the season, fell to the Flames 2-1 at PPG Paints Arena on Saturday.

They next play 24 hours later in Boston.

Crosby wasn’t pleased with the ruling.

“I think it looks bad,” Crosby said. “But being in the play, I felt like I did my best to try and avoid the goalie. I got pushed into him.”

The goal was immediately ruled off, and the Penguins did not challenge the play.

Had they challenged the play and lost the challenge, they’d have been short-handed for two minutes, hardly ideal when already trailing with less than 10 minutes remaining in the third period.

Dan Muse said he wasn’t confident that the Penguins would have won the challenge and didn’t think it was worth the risk.

Crosby was pretty adamant that the goal should have counted.

“The explanation (I was given) had something to do with being in the crease,” he said. “But you’re allowed to be in the crease as long as you don’t impede the goalie. I was trying to get through there and got pushed back.”

Crosby believes the goaltender, Cooley, embellished the play.

“He did a good job of selling it,” the Penguins’ captain said. “I grazed him. He went down pretty easy. What are you going to do? It’s a hard one to challenge. It doesn’t look great. But just being part of the play, I know I was going to get around (Cooley) if I didn’t get pushed into him.”

Connor Zary gave the Flames the lead early in the first period.

Egor Chinakhov evened the score in the second period by blasting an Evgeni Malkin pass past Cooley.

However, Matt Coronato scored early in the third period for the Flames during a lull in play from the Penguins. Calgary was able to hold off the Penguins for the remainder of the afternoon.

“You’re not going to have good starts all the time,” Crosby said. “Games are going to have momentum flows. Unfortunately, we weren’t able to build off that second-period momentum.”

Goaltender Artūrs Šilovs stopped 23 of 25 shots for the Penguins, who lost for the first time since Dec. 23.

 Ten postgame observations 

• I can see exactly where Crosby is coming from, but there is a bigger issue here, and it’s one we’ve discussed many times over the years. What exactly is goaltender interference? I ask this honestly.

Nobody really knows. It says what it says in the rulebook, but if NHL officials followed what the rulebook says, each team would have 10 power plays per game.