3 Penguins Thoughts: Very Uncomfortable Times

The Pittsburgh Penguins might be in shock.

The team hoped to build upon their ending flourish last season, launching themselves back into playoff contention. Yet, with a cadre of blown leads, another handful of unacceptable or unprofessional efforts, and more baffling mistakes than any team should make in a season, the Penguins are careening toward the bottom of the league.

They’re in contention for the top pick, not the top prize, as American Thanksgiving is little more than a week away.

To their credit, the Penguins players tried to answer questions following their 6-2 meltdown loss to the Columbus Blue Jackets, but the lack of emotion was the real insight into the room; they didn’t have an answer to the latest gut-punch loss.

How does a team or a coach plan for defensemen to abdicate all responsibility for a pair of crucial goals against? Or for the team’s best players to all make mistakes at the same time (Erik Karlsson’s ill-advised pinch and pass, while Sidney Crosby, Evgeni Malkin, and Rickard Rakell provided no coverage over the top). How does a goalie raise his trapper on a 56-foot slapshot without getting in position or stopping it?

This writer has taken heat for not placing more blame on coach Mike Sullivan, but we’re pretty sure none of that is on Sullivan’s whiteboard. The Penguins’ energy and intensity on Friday were a level above a usual regular season game in November, yet it still all unraveled. It wasn’t scheme or preparation that was at fault.

But it does feel like something drastic needs to change very soon, either the coach or numerous players. And that’s where the one-timers should begin.

Penguins One-timers

Mike Sullivan

The coach would pay the price for this crumbling in almost every other situation. Higher hopes and low performance are bad news for a coach’s job security. Sullivan seems to be on solid ground with both management and, more importantly, ownership, but ultimately, this is a business. Sullivan isn’t the coach emeritus for life, and there will come a day when it doesn’t work.

The team’s resurgent effort in the first 40 against Columbus was a testament to its buy-in, and the team’s utter collapse in the third was a glaring spotlight on every single problem they have, including the coach’s inability to pull the reigns on his horse, which is now easily spooked.

General manager Kyle Dubas’s immediate plans for the roster will/should determine Sullivan’s future. If the exodus is underway, Sullivan can survive because he’s a good coach. If the GM is stuck with the roster and it becomes a rebuild through attrition, Sullivan probably has to go because the internal feeling will only get worse.

Speaking of Dubas

Kyle Dubas

Dubas deserves quite a bit of criticism for his spate of moves that have brought the Penguins to this point. The number of moves that have worked pales in comparison to the moves that have not.

The team’s decline is directly attributable to the roster construction. A poorly constructed defense and a top-heavy forward group are major problems. Perhaps Sullivan unlocked part of the top-heavy problem by moving Drew O’Connor to center. Still, the lack of wingers with any finish meant the plethora of scoring chances that O’Connor’s line created remained on paper, not the scoreboard.

Though none have admitted it (yet), Dubas trading Lars Eller for a 2027 pick must have been demoralizing to the locker room. It meant the end was nigh, and there would be no help coming.

If Sidney Crosby starts to feel like George Custer, surrounded by an opponent with no help coming, it would be understandable.

It’s probably time for Dubas to make some public admissions. Say it out loud, set expectations, lay out the path forward, and get to it. The lack of public confession of what is obviously happening is only adding to the tension.

Defense/Ryan Graves

Graves was a goat on three goals Friday. Zach Aston-Reese (remember him?) was free to deflect the first shot of the game past goalie Tristan Jarry. Graves was in position but simply didn’t contain Aston-Reese. Graves and Ryan Shea were mystifyingly out of position on goals four and five.

Count me as one who put more blame on Karlsson for what became the game-winning goal late in the second period. Sullivan chastised his forwards for not “reloading” to the top of the zone, but Karlsson needed to recognize all three forwards were already below the dots and pressuring the defenders in the scoring zone. Karlsson would have been wise to make a simple play. A couple of puck bounces later, it was a three-on-one.

The team has an A game and an F game, but nothing in between. Kris Letang’s decline in play, combined with Karlsson’s incongruence and the general unreliability of the rest of the blue line (Marcus Pettersson excluded), completely undoes the team.

The team could overcome a lack of finish if it were not full of players with a hearty penchant for mistakes and a shaky blue line. A better defense would completely change the Penguins’ game, but Dubas isn’t known for building solid blue lines.

The intended help has only exacerbated the issues. The shock and lack of answers in the Penguins’ room are only the start. The story has unfolded many times on many other teams. Unfortunately, the Penguins, Dubas, and Sullivan are careering headlong into the worst of it.

Crosby, Malkin and Letang deserve better, but sports rarely deliver one’s just deserts.