Analysis: 3 Biggest Issues Facing Penguins

From the optimistic to the dark light and harsh reality, the Pittsburgh Penguins’ offseason analysis has two very different sides. Last season, the Penguins finished behind the Washington Capitals, and Washington has greatly improved this summer. The Penguins finished just ahead of the New Jersey Devils, who have also greatly improved. Not only will the Penguins face external challenges if they hope to erase the sour taste of the collapsing 2023 and ’24 teams, but they will also face significant internal challenges.

We’ll table the Sidney Crosby contract situation, which Pittsburgh Hockey Now has reported on from multiple angles, including the organization telling at least one free agent they were in a holding pattern until signing Crosby.

Read More: Decisions Wait for Crosby; Latest on Marcus Pettersson

So, we’ll assume–for now–the Penguins will have Crosby for the foreseeable future, and his status will not be a distraction as training camp and the season approaches.

No, the 2024-25 Penguins have real roster construction issues that could lead to a meltdown, especially if Crosby does not carry the team as he did last season.

3 Penguins Issues

1. Who Will Score?

The Penguins ranked 18th in goals scored last season. Imagine the organization that has set the standard of offensive hockey for a few decades being outscored by 17 other teams despite adding future Hall of Fame defenseman Erik Karlsson fresh from a 100-point season.

Quite certainly, the power play cost the team more than a dozen more goals, as did Reilly Smith’s vanishing act, but the biggest culprit was indeed the team’s compounding no-show efforts. A couple of early chances became blowout losses.

As one player called them, “getting stomped.”

Gone is 40-goal scorer Jake Guentzel, replaced by Drew O’Connor, whose career year reached 15 goals. Michael Bunting is a cosmic upgrade over Smith on the second line with Evgeni Malkin and figures to offset some of the Guentzel loss, but where will the goals come from?

The presumed third line, comprised of Anthony Beauvillier, Kevin Hayes, and Valtteri Puustinen, registered only a combined 61 points last season.

We like O’Connor, and he could increase his total to 20 goals or more. Bunting brings elements to the lineup that the Penguins don’t otherwise have, but the offensive output from the top six figures to drop. Can Rickard Rakell, Bryan Rust, and others not only pick up the slack, but increase the totals?

2. Holding Leads?

If scoring enough goals to get a lead isn’t a problem, holding them surely could be. The Penguins have been one of the worst teams in the NHL at holding a lead for two years running. Two years ago, the Penguins were the third-worst team in the NHL for holding leads and gave up six two-goal leads. Last year, they improved ever so slightly to fifth worst and gave up five two-goal leads.

The Penguins warts were on display as early as the first game of last season when the dropkicked away a lead to the lowly Chicago Blackhawks.

Those lost-lead totals are for regulation losses and don’t include ties at the end of regulation, or the Penguins totals would be much worse. The stats are courtesy of morehockeystats.com.

So, what have the Penguins done to improve holding leads? They did sign high-energy grinder Blake Lizotte. The acquisition of Hayes means Lars Eller could slide to that fourth-line, lead-protecting role.

However, Eller was already part of that lockdown crew.

The Penguins may have held serve on the blue line, but they didn’t improve. Matt Grzelcyk will replace P.O Joseph. Otherwise, it will be the same blue line and the same goaltending.

One of the Penguins’ biggest issues protecting leads was not personnel nor strategy but instead resided between their ears. Perhaps that can improve with a new season, but there’s a lot of negative momentum to overcome.

3. Uncertainty

It’s not just the Crosby contract situation, which may or may not be resolved by training camp; it’s the entire cloud of uncertainty surrounding the Penguins’ future. President of hockey operations/GM Kyle Dubas has steadfastly maintained the team is heading in a new direction. This summer, he backed up those words by trading away players and cap space in exchange for draft picks.

“We want to get back to being a contender,” Dubas said at the draft. “And so I probably look at it in a much more–I mean, the coaches and the players have to look at it day to day. They’re trying to win every day–I have to look at it with a much broader lens of (not wanting) Pittsburgh to be a team that just squeaks in.”

While Dubas might bristle at the following characterization, it seems to be true: The current team is on its own. The core group with Crosby, Evgeni Malkin, and Kris Letang can stay together as long as they wish, but veteran reinforcements won’t be coming. Prospects may make the jump to the NHL, but Dubas won’t be spending assets to acquire established NHL talent.

Read More: Penguins Q&A–What We Know About Sidney Crosby, Malkin Rumors.

It must be a weird feeling for the roster, perhaps even a tinge of abandonment.