Molinari: Looking For a Flaw in Penguins? Well, Here It Is

The Pittsburgh Penguins, 4-0-1 as they prepare to play in Edmonton tonight, look like a pretty good hockey team.

Their offense has been prolific and balanced. It has produced six goals no fewer than four times in the first six games, in part because all 12 forwards have scored at least once.

The team defense has been solid most of the time. That’s been especially true while playing 5-on-5;, the Penguins have given up a league-low four goals when both teams are at full strength.

Part of the credit for that belongs to Tristan Jarry, who has been their best player so far. He has the NHL’s fifth-best save percentage (.941) and tenth-best goals-against average (2.01).

When the Penguins are reasonably healthy — of course, every team is going to lose a number of man-games to injury and illness — they appear to be capable of competing with any opponent. Perhaps even of making a legitimate run at the franchise’s sixth Stanley Cup, which would be remarkable for a club that hasn’t won a playoff round since 2018.

Naturally, a lot of things would have to break their way for that to happen.

Jarry will have to get to the very top of his game. And stay there.

Their aging core — specifically, Sidney Crosby, Evgeni Malkin and Kris Letang — will have to hold up under the rigors of an 82-game regular season. Then find a way to elevate their play when the stakes rise.

And the Penguins’ most important players will have to spend more time in the lineup than they do in the trainer’s room.

That might be the biggest challenge of all for them, since the Penguins seem to be willing to accept whatever abuse opponents are inclined to deliver to whoever they happen to target.

The most recent example came last Thursday, when Los Angeles forward Brendan Lemieux drove a shoulder into Jake Guentzel’s head in the third period of a 6-1 Penguins victory.

It was utterly cheap and unprovoked — although not the least bit surprising, considering Lemieux’s bloodlines — but the Pittsburgh Penguins’ response to their top goal-scorer being victimized appeared to consist of some dirty looks and perhaps a few verbal jabs.

Think that’s going to deter Lemieux from perpetrating something similar the next time the Kings and Penguins meet?

Delivering cheap shots is in Lemieux’s DNA, but even if it weren’t, watching the Penguins’ first-round playoff series against the New York Rangers this spring would have made it clear to him that he likely wouldn’t face retribution for any offense he committed against the Penguins.

If Lemieux had tuned into the opener early enough, he could have seen Jacob Trouba go after Guentzel on the first shift. The very first shift.

Had he stuck around through the first 20 minutes, he could have watched Rangers defenseman Ryan Lindgren knock Rickard Rakell out of the series until Game 7 with a hit to the head. Lindgren initially was given a major penalty, but the officials knocked that down to a minor because, hey, what’s the big deal about targeting a guy’s head?

Of course, those two minutes in the penalty box were more punishment than anything the Penguins gave Lindgren as Rakell was being helped off the ice … and put out of action until the series finale.

And in Game 5, of course, Trouba altered the course of the series when he drove an elbow into Crosby’s head during the second period. The Penguins, who had a 3-1 edge in the series and a 2-0 lead in the potential clincher at that point, would not win another game until October.

Trouba didn’t get a penalty, a fine or a suspension from the officials or the league. Perhaps the referees and Dept. of Player Safety were taking their cues from the Pittsburgh Penguins, who certainly didn’t make Trouba pay for what he did.

There was a time when a player who was guilty of what Trouba did to any player — let alone a captain and franchise cornerstone who is one of the premier players in NHL history — would have had a stick broken over his skull, and the jagged remains of the shaft jammed into his spleen.

It’s great that the NHL has evolved from the days when wanton violence was an integral part of almost every game, and clubs had to employ at least one guy who couldn’t do anything with his hands but make a fist simply to keep opponents from taking liberties with guys who could actually play the game.

(For those too young to remember the Dark Ages ushered in by the Broad Street Bullies in the 1970s, be grateful. And not just because it means you aren’t old.)

But tolerating another club taking out a teammate with an unabashedly dirty play can’t be accepted, either, if only because it encourages others to do the same. Why not remove Crosby or Guentzel or Malkin or Letang from the mix when precedent says the downside might be a minor penalty. If that.

It’s not that the Penguins need to add a Georges Laraque type — someone who can reduce an opponent to a stain on the ice with a few punches — to their roster. Mike Sullivan is adamant that everyone in his lineup be able to play the game, and rightly so.

But the Penguins have to make it known that when a line is crossed, it will draw a response.

And that it won’t just be verbal.

Why this is an issue for the Penguins really is a mystery. It’s not a question of courage, because their roster is full of guys who are fearless when they’re actually playing the game. Do you really think that guys who have no qualms about absorbing a beating to hang out around the crease would be afraid to break a stick over the unprotected back of an opponent’s leg if the situation calls for vengeance?

Whatever the answer to this issue is, the Pittsburgh Penguins need to find it soon. If they don’t, they’re going to run the risk of losing their most important players. And a lot more.