RALEIGH, N.C. -- Let's break this game down to some of its major components:

• The Penguins went on the road and scored two goals in the first 5 1/2 minutes.

• They killed a five-on-three power play that lasted 99 seconds and did not give up a shot while they were down two men.

• They outshot their opponents by 40-21 -- a fair indication of how much time they spent in the attacking zone.

But the numbers that mattered Thursday night showed the Carolina Hurricanes with a 4-3 overtime victory against the Penguin at the RBC Center.

Hurricanes defenseman Brian Pothier got the winner 23 seconds into overtime when he beat Penguins goalie Brent Johnson, a one-time teammate in Washington, with a shot from the right dot. That goal put the punctuation on Johnson's most lackluster showing in 20 appearances this season.

"I think there are a few [goals] he would like back," Penguins coach Dan Bylsma said.

Johnson, who has been reliably solid since fall, was particularly unhappy with the Hurricanes' second and third goals: No. 2 came on an across-the-grain backhander from the slot by Zach Boychuk, while Eric Staal got No. 3 from the right side of the crease.

Johnson characterized those goals as stemming from "a couple of letdowns by myself," and they figured prominently in ending the Penguins' four-game winning streak.

So did the 37 saves made by Johnson's Carolina counterpart, Justin Peters. The Penguins didn't know much about him before the game but should have a pretty fair book on him now.

"He played really well," said right winger Bill Guerin, who scored the Penguins' second goal. "He's [in the NHL] for a reason."

Peters' performance helped the Hurricanes to keep their playoff pulse beating, although they remain a long shot to qualify for the postseason.

"The team we played has proven all year long that they're not going to stop playing," Bylsma said.

The Penguins, meanwhile, are 40-22-5 and four points ahead of the New Jersey Devils, whom they will play tonight in Newark.

The Penguins, who had won their first four games after the Olympic break, had a 2-0 lead before Carolina recorded its first shot on Johnson.

Just 64 seconds into the game, Jordan Staal took a feed from Pascal Dupuis and threw a shot past Peters from inside the left circle for his 19th, and Guerin, back in the lineup after sitting out three games because of back spasms, followed with a power play goal at 5:29.

"We came out and played the way we wanted to," left winger Matt Cooke said.

But Ray Whitney sliced the Penguins' advantage to 2-1 with a power-play goal at 7:45, and Boychuk scored at 9:11 to tie the score.

Eric Staal put Carolina in front, 3-2, at 2:09 of the second, but Cooke got that back for the Penguins six minutes into the period by backhanding a Dupuis rebound behind Peters.

The Penguins outshot Carolina, 30-14, during the second and third periods, and their total doesn't reflect a couple of shots that caromed off goal posts.

"We put up the type of offensive-zone time and shots that you like to see," Bylsma said.

The Penguins also did some pretty fair work in the defensive end late in the second, after Mark Eaton picked up an interference minor at 15:38 and Sergei Gonchar was sent off for delay of game 21 seconds later.

The Penguins had a 21-13 edge in shots when Gonchar went off. And when Eaton returned.

"We got a big kill five-on-three, which was huge," Cooke said. "A momentum-builder."

No question the Penguins got momentum out of that kill. It just never translated into a go-ahead goal.

"We were coming hard every time," left winger Alexei Ponikarovsky said. "We had a couple of posts and were close a few times."

None of that showed up in the final score, of course, but the Penguins won't have to look hard at the game tape to see a lot of things they'll like.

"We felt like we played the right way," Cooke said. "You never like to lose, but sometimes you feel like you deserve a better fate."

Penguins Plus, a blog by Dave Molinari and Shelly Anderson, is featured exclusively on PG+, a members-only web site from the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. Our introduction to PG+ gives you all the details.