3 Very Tough Questions for the Penguins After Road Trip (+)

WASHINGTON, D.C — The Pittsburgh Penguins completed their three-game road trip in much the same way Goldilocks picked her porridge and her bed.

One game had lots of good, then lots of bad in a shootout loss. One game was terrible because a couple of top players let them down. And one game was mission-affirming after beating a very good team on the road with a dominant third period. It was just right.

The Penguins finished the road trip 1-1-1 but did so with an uplifting beatdown of the Washington Capitals in the third period Friday night. Yes, this team beat that team when it mattered. The Penguins, with only five wins and more points of struggle than most, beat one of the hottest teams in the NHL and did so with a complete defensive effort in the third period.

“I think for us, it was an opportunity to win a hockey game,” Rickard Rakell said Friday. “With a tight game, we haven’t come out on the right side of those lately. We said to each other to go get it.”

Sure, we all saw that type of game coming, right?

After 16 games, which is just about 20% of the NHL season, there are a few very real questions surrounding the Penguins that need to be asked, and they do not portend more good things unless the team does, indeed, go get it.

The most obvious question after Friday night would be, “Why can’t they do that more often?” Using only one question mark is a professional format; otherwise, there might be a half-dozen. However, digging deeper than a mere exclamation of exasperation, there are real structural issues that were not foreseen a month ago.

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