Off-Day Blog: The 2 Biggest Penguins Problems; On Dubas to Solve?

EDMONTON, Alberta — With a busted keyboard because I was stupid enough to buy an open-box Macbook the day before leaving on a nine-day trip, sipping on a Tim Horton’s black coffee with a 10-deep bag of chocolate-glazed Timbits, a long bus ride from Calgary to Edmonton beginning at 6 a.m. after a night that ended well past 2 a.m. was enough to ponder the greatest issuesw facing the Pittsburgh Penguins and potential solutions.

Addressing the Penguins’ problems is not going to be pretty, perhaps even tougher than my ability to quickly use commas, the letter Y, and the No. 4 without pressing it three times and swearing. Also, Dear Best B*y, TEST STUFF BEFORE YOU THROW IT BACK IN THE CASE!

No, goaltending is not a primary concern for the Penguins team, though most of the attention is focused on struggling goalie Tristan Jarry. Fellow netminders Joel Blomqvist and Alex Nedeljkovic provide professional backstopping and moments of spectacular play. They’ve given their team a chance to win each game they’ve played, and that’s all you can ask of a backup/1A and a rookie.

For the record, I’m still unsure of how to classify Nedeljkovic. Is he a very good backup or a legitimate tandem goalie?

Penguins Biggest Problems

The Penguins’ biggest problems take up approximately $25 million in cap space per year. And the second biggest problem is a gargantuan hole in the lineup.

1. The Star Players, Including Sidney Crosby

Crosby has not submitted such a rough stretch of hockey in a few years. Perhaps going back to the end of the 2022-23 season when he simply wore out after carrying the surrounding slackers for so much of the season, but during that period, he was not turning the puck over.

Crosby has 13 turnovers so far, and Tuesday night, his cross-ice backhanders were gunpowder for the Calgary Flames transition. He’s looping in the defensive zone and not scoring goals.

It’s all a bit startling.

1A: What’s equally if not more startling is any defensive pairing involving Erik Karlsson. Perhaps he is feeling more comfortable this season and is taking more chances as a result. Perhaps it was always there, but the spotlight on team-wide breakdowns is shining a hefty halogen upon his decisions, which defy the simple basics of the position.

Marcus Pettersson’s job is to clean up Karlsson’s freelancing and Picaso-esque defensive style. However, Pettersson is having his own issues getting his feet beneath him this season. On Tuesday, Pettersson played with Kris Letang, while Matt Grzelcyk played his worst game of the season in playing his first game beside Karlsson.

Karlsson’s defensive game can be … surprising. He’s an offensive guy, but he’ll need to produce a lot of points—not just be involved in them—to offset the issue.

Also, there’s an issue I’ve been watching out of the side of my peripheral vision. Karlsson loves to talk to Crosby about what Karlsson wants to see. I’ve seen it in the locker room, and it happened on the bench in Calgary. Karlsson stood at the end of the bench after a shift and was yelling down to Crosby for more than 30 seconds.

Karlsson has definite thoughts on what should happen on the ice and how they should do it.

Crosby and Karlsson were not in a fight, but I also don’t get the impression that Crosby is hanging on every word. Yeah, my impression is that it’s kind of like that.

1B: Defenseman Kris Letang is also out of sorts. He’s not making ghastly turnovers or having a walkabout, but he’s not been the dynamic defender transitioning to offense, either. In full disclosure, I believe some of my colleagues are quite down on his game. I would place it more in the mediocre range.

Combined with Pettersson’s struggles and Matt Grzelcyk’s faceplanting Tuesday when playing with Karlsson for the first time, the Penguins’ defense is not well.

Issue 2: Top Line Scoring

The Penguins were the second-highest-scoring team in the NHL before Tuesday, so goals aren’t really a problem, right?

Wrong. A big part of the Penguins’ offensive statistics and their abysmal goal differential is cheating for offense. Pettersson explained to PHN how the Buffalo Sabres dangled the carrot and sucked the Penguins into an offensive track meet, but that doesn’t account for the myriad of examples of the Penguins bolting the zone before they had puck possession.

Coach Mike Sullivan gave Anthony Beauvillier a six-game run on the top line. There’s a good bit to like about Beauvillier’s game, but if one removes his two-goal game against Detroit, there was very little offense playing on Crosby’s all-important left wing.

Re-enter Drew O’Connor, who capably filled the role after GM Kyle Dubas traded Jake Guentzel last March. O’Connor has been a beast this season beside Lars Eller and has plenty of strengths to tout.

But is he a top-six scorer? Maybe. He has three goals this season, and he laughs when PHN teases him about scoring 20 before Christmas. But he and RW Bryan Rust have very similar games, and neither is big on creativity or creating offense. They’re speed, puck retrieval, and corner and wall workers who are very good short-area players who can do something with opportunities, but neither are playmakers.

The disappearance of Michael Bunting on the Malkin line has compounded the lack of offense on the top line. Sullivan can’t simply flip the left-wings.

Kyle Dubas

And so the above falls on Dubas. Can he find a LW who has untapped offense or the hockey IQ to create offense beside Crosby? Can he plug the holes defensively without sacrificing the future assets he’s been accumulating?

The job isn’t easy, which is why it pays millions per year. Those Xbox trades are just that, and they are not often connected to real life. By overstocking his roster, Dubas has built depth this season, and perhaps it’s time to spend some of it quickly.

Sullivan has already started pushing buttons, and his big-swing changes on Sunday in Winnipeg had just a hint of early-season exasperation. The next step would be a whiff of desperation.

We’ve seen a few teams send scouts to multiple Penguins games already, but we haven’t seen any management attend. It’s probably a little early for serious talks, but keep your eyes on Vegas. They don’t mind big-ticket items, and the team is a little carbonation short of full fizz this season; they’ve won all four home games but lost all three (0-2-1) road games. Vegas is older, has some expiring contracts, and has some injury issues that aren’t likely to clear up.

Oh, and Vegas has a bit of a goalie deficit despite Stanley Cup aspirations. Adin Hill was good enough to win the 2023 Stanley Cup, but his save percentage was .909 last season. He’s sporting a paltry .851 this season. For comparison, Jarry is at .836.

Vegas’s other NHL netminder is Ilya Samsonov, who cleared waivers in Toronto last season. He’s off to a good start, but trusting him as a No. 1 goalie is a gamble worthy of the city of Lost Wages.

Regardless of the teams hunting, Dubas can’t let the Penguins languish as he did last season. His inaction was an unheralded reason the team missed the playoffs by a few points for a second consecutive season. Sullivan has been sending messages with the frequency and boldness of Hemmingway in a war zone.

It will very soon be on Dubas to send one, too.