The 3 Biggest Problems Plaguing Penguins

WINNIPEG, Manitoba — No one inside the Pittsburgh Penguins locker room was happy Friday night. Neither was there any positive spin or encouragement coming from inside the coaches’s offices.

And nor should there have been.

The Penguins submitted their second consecutive slopfest Friday in a 4-1 loss to the Carolina Hurricanes. Don’t let the score fool you. The game wasn’t nearly that close. Penguins rookie goalie Joel Blomqvist prevented the game from being an out-of-control, out-of-hand, laugher at the Penguins’ expense.

Carolina Hurricanes goalie Frederick Andersen could have kept the postgame beers in the Carolina net. There was little danger the Penguins would have broken the bottles or dented the cans.

However, Friday’s debacle was more than a casual Friday night loss. After a horrendous performance on the opening night of the season, which many laid at goalie Tristan Jarry’s feet, the team has alternated–even within games–between unbeatable and unworthy. Even contained within the win in Montreal on Monday, the Penguins’ pendulum swung with ferocity.

Read More: Kingerski: Penguins Officially Have a Jarry Problem

This is the same malaise they’ve been going through for a season and a half.

Sure, the Penguins had an emotional win Wednesday over Buffalo in which Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin crested milestones that placed them among elite historical company. Sure, the Penguins have indeed played five games in seven days.

It would be acceptable if they wore down at the end of the gauntlet. But that’s not the case. The Penguins should be well rested Saturday morning because very few put forth an honest effort.

And that’s a huge concern.

“There were so many things that needed to be better–the attitude, the energy, the execution,” Lars Eller said. “If those things are better, then we’re probably not playing as much shorthanded. So, we put ourselves in bad spots all the time.”

Read More: Penguins Locker Room: Eller and Letang Rip Team Effort

3 Biggest Penguins Problems

1. Same Awful Inconsistency

“We have to be more consistent,” and “We have to find a way to be more consistent,” has said every player in the locker room at one point during the last 18 months.

The only consistency has been wild inconsistency.

Six games into the new season–the new page–the new leaf turned–and it’s the same sludge. The biggest problem is that, from GM Kyle Dubas to coach Mike Sullivan to captain Sidney Crosby, no one seems to have an answer.

There isn’t a support group for inconsistency, nor are there any chips for six months of consistency. Perhaps playing to their peak performance is just too difficult to maintain, and the real team is the lackadaisical doormat.

If you work backward, that makes a lot more sense and would be easier to address.

2. Defensive Coverage

Our resident coach Francis Anzalone calls it the “sort out,” or you may use Sullivan’s term, “track-back,” or just good old-fashioned defensive zone coverage.

There aren’t enough adjectives or expletives to accurately describe just how bad it has been. Defenseman Erik Karlsson has been jaw-droppingly lost in the D-zone. Friday night, he resembled an over-anxious puppy chasing cars as he raced past a waiting shooter to chase the puck on the far side of the ice.

A moment later, that shooter then had a clean shot at Joel Blomqvist from about 15 feet away.

Jack St. Ivany has been beaten, and Kris Letang’s occasional walkabouts have existed for so long that they were long ago baked into the Pittsburgh Penguins’ casserole.

If you watch the Coach’s Debrief on our YouTube channel, the number of individual moments in which Anzalone caught four or five Penguins defenders puck-watching was staggering. If you’re curious, no, watching the puck and losing awareness of your opponents is very bad. Very, very bad.

But it’s the one thing the Penguins do consistently, and the habit has spread throughout the team.

With so many veterans on the roster, is this fixable without going nuclear?

Not only have the defensemen shown their warts, but the forwards’ inability to consistently attach to the proper man stood in stark contrast to the perfectly structured Carolina Hurricanes Friday.

A few more performances like Friday and the nuclear option will seem less nuclear and more necessary, as well as wonderfully cathartic for the paying public.

3. Lack of identity

I know who the Penguins are supposed to be. I think Sullivan knows who the Penguins should be. But the Penguins themselves?

The players may intellectually know who and what they are, but their hearts are rebelling. Old age should burn and rave at close of day, but the team’s rebellion against what they are in favor of what they were is the likely fulcrum upon which so many problems are teetering.

The Penguins are a strong team that is able to possess the puck in the low zone, with enough players who excel in the short-area game. Yet they can’t help but be drawn into track meets with teams like the Buffalo Sabres and desperately hope to do so with the Carolina Hurricanes.

It might seem the Penguins don’t like themselves.

Through the intricate maze and complexities, scapegoats and blame are plenty. The coach? Yes, probably so. However, could any new coach fix the internal war that rests within the players of what was and is? Could any coach fix players in their 30s who are just bad defensively?

No, the fixes rest with the players and the management. Sooner or later, something will give. The Penguins will take their identity to heart, or Dubas will take phone calls.

The only consistency cannot be inconsistency. Again.