Molinari: Penguins Trapped in NHL’s Mushy Middle

The Pittsburgh Penguins have taken points from some of the NHL’s finest clubs this season.

Although they have a modest total of 18 victories after 45 games, they’ve beaten division leaders like Toronto and Washington, as well as both Stanley Cup finalists from last spring, Florida and Edmonton.

They’ve also proven quite capable of losing to opponents flawed enough to have settled behind them in the overall standings. That list includes the New York Rangers, Utah and the New York Islanders.

Detroit, Columbus and Ottawa were in that group, too, until the past few days. Not coincidentally, all three defeated the Penguins during a recent six-game stretch.

Of course, even the most accomplished club is going to absorb some defeats over the course of an 82-game season.

The 1992-93 Penguins, for example, earned the franchise’s only Presidents’ Trophy, but still lost 21 games in the pre-overtime era.

Conversely, while the 1983-84 Penguins were bad enough to earn the right to draft Mario Lemieux, they still managed to win 16 times. (Which, given their personnel and management’s understandable obsession with getting Lemieux, might be one of the most remarkable feats in team history.)

The 2024-25 Penguins obviously will not challenge for the distinction of being the best club in franchise history, and they’ve already assured that they won’t be the worst.

And that might be the crux of their challenge. Not only for the balance of this season, but in the years ahead.

The record of 18-19-8 they’ll take into Tuesday’s game against Seattle, the finale of a five-game homestand, is pretty much the statistical definition of mediocrity.

The Pittsburgh Penguins are not good enough to seriously contend for a championship, but neither are they sufficiently inept to fall into a position to draft a prospect the caliber of a Macklin Celebrini or Connor Bedard. Guys who could provide the cornerstone of a rebuild, be it rapid or gradual.

They are, in short, becoming the reincarnation of the Hartford Whalers from the late 1980s and early 1990s.

After entering the world in 1972 as members of the World Hockey Association, Hartford joined the NHL in 1979 and operated there until they relocated to North Carolina in 1997.

During the latter span, the Whalers got into the Stanley Cup playoffs eight times, and made it past the opening round one time. Once.

They swept Quebec in the 1986 Adams Division semifinals, an accomplishment deemed to be so epic that it was marked with a parade after Montreal eliminated the Whalers in the next round.

Now, the next time the Penguins win a playoff series — something that’s eluded them since 2018 — it’s not likely that hundreds of thousands of fans will jam the Boulevard of the Allies to revel in the feat, the way they did after the past few Cup wins.

Regardless, these Penguins are stuck in the same rut those Whalers teams of more than three decades ago were.

They, like Hartford, have some quality players — remember, the Penguins got Ron Francis and Ulf Samuelsson from the Whalers shortly before going on their first Cup run in 1991 — but they also have too many significant leaks to plug.

Some nights — all too many nights, really — it’s subpar goaltending. Tristan Jarry and Alex Nedeljkovic both have save percentages below .890.

(Too bad some of the Penguins’ forwards can’t shoot on them, since depth scoring hasn’t made it past the hypothetical stage nearly often enough.)

Lately, penalty-killing has been an issue. Before containing Tampa Bay on its only man-advantage in the Lightning’s 5-2 victory at PPG Paints Arena Sunday, the Penguins had given up eight power-play goals in six games.

And, of course, there’s been no such thing as a safe lead for the Penguins in 2024-25. Doesn’t matter if they’re, say, up by three with time winding down in the third period, things frequently will remain suspenseful until the buzzer sounds at the end of regulation.

And, often, beyond that.

There are no quick fixes for all that is wrong with this team, to extract it from the morass of mediocrity.

While it’s logical, at least at this point, to believe the Pittsburgh Penguins president of hockey operations/GM Kyle Dubas will be an active seller as the trade deadline approaches, he’s not likely to gut the roster.

After all, assuring Sidney Crosby that he’d strive to keep the team competitive seems to have been part of the negotiations that yielded Crosby’s latest contract.

But even if the Penguins qualify for the playoffs — at the moment, there are three teams and two points separating them from Columbus, which occupies the second wild-card spot — it’s hard to envision them surviving one round, let alone four.

Which means no one should be mapping out a parade route. Not now, or anytime in the foreseeable future.