What’s the Goal Here? Penguins Badly Need Shakeup, Immediately

Skipping the pretense and long setup, the Pittsburgh Penguins have been in trouble and remain in trouble. Their inability to rise for 7 p.m. faceoffs or finish games in which they have a lead has become destructive. Watching the mental meltdowns and disappearing acts surely grows tiresome for even those on the inside, and the team is in desperate need of a shakeup.

More specifically, a shakeup trade. Urgently. Jim Rutherford style.

“Inexcusable,” Marcus Pettersson called the stunningly poor performance Monday night in the Penguins’ 7-1 loss. One loss wouldn’t sting nearly as much if it were an isolated or rare occurrence. However, the Penguins already have a handful of them this season.

Read More: Penguins Unacceptable, Something Remains Horribly Wrong

They were skated out of their own building by the Carolina Hurricanes before taking off on a four-game Western Canada trip. The Edmonton Oilers badly outclassed them, and the Vancouver Canucks overran them after the Penguins grabbed a 2-0 lead.

Monday, coach Mike Sullivan sternly compared the Penguins’ resplendent win against Washington to their most recent embarrassing loss.

“We stayed on the right side of the attack. We had numbers back. You know, we didn’t make high-risk plays in the top half of the offensive zone that allows teams to transition and give easy offense,” Sullivan said of the win in Washington. “Essentially, we didn’t beat ourselves. Because what I just discussed is how you beat yourself. And tonight, we certainly didn’t replicate that.”

Oh, and they were taken behind the woodshed by the New York Rangers when optimism and emotions were high on opening night, 6-0. This season has been more of the same for the Penguins, who have picked up where they left off for the first 67 games last season: a team with historic talent at the top of the lineup but succumbs to their worst often and ultimately lacks the fire to bring their best with any consistency.

Kyle Dubas

General manager Kyle Dubas stated his goal was to get the team back to contender status and admitted that he would have to do things to build for the future while the team is trying to win today. He accepted that dichotomy as part of the job.

However, Sidney Crosby signed a two-year extension under the pretense that the team would retool on the fly and would remain competitive. A 6-9-2 record is not competitive.

So, what is the goal here?

If Dubas is OK with the losing so he gets his hands on a coveted top-five draft pick, the Penguins are well on their way. At the 20% mark, the Penguins have just six wins in 17 games. They’re on pace for a 24-win, 56-point season 30 win, 70 point season, which would place them in the bottom few teams.

But is that really the plan? Dubas didn’t intentionally toss his team an anchor when they wanted a life jacket but that’s been the result.

Is the championship core OK with this? Surely, they cannot be. The exasperation and hurt in Sidney Crosby’s voice was readily apparent Monday night as he tried to answer for his team skipping out on the bill once again.

No, if the people in charge are held to their word, the Penguins need to make changes, NOW. Today is the ideal day for a shakeup trade to let the locker room know their performances are more casual and underwater than Captain Nemo’s Nautilus.

There are players available and teams hunting to make a trade. Nashville, Montreal, and Buffalo are reportedly three such teams and Dubas has personally scouted all three in the last week.

Let’s be blunt: Dubas’s moves in the first year or more of his tenure have not turned around the Penguins’ fortunes, and the moves have been far more bad than good. The Erik Karlsson trade was both his opus and albatross, as he shed terrible salaries, which were saddled upon him by former GM Ron Hextall, in an extraordinarily creative trade. Yet Karlsson’s play has been stunningly below his abilities.

In his second summer, Dubas stockpiled castoff free agents and trade targets who came with draft picks. The trade strategy may well land him a solid player or two in five years (because he only got second and third-round picks over the next few years), but Kevin Hayes and Cody Glass haven’t made an impact. Free agents Anthony Beauvillier and Matt Grzelcyk haven’t fared much better, and in fact, Grzelcyk has been a soft spot on the very important top pairing.

Dubas also traded his top prospect, center Brayden Yager, for Rutger McGroarty, who has two points (1-1-2) and is a minus-5 in his first nine AHL games. Most expected McGroarty to be part of the Penguins youth movement this season, but his skating has submarined his hockey IQ and ability to score at the professional level.

And so the Penguins are floundering—badly. The attempted reinforcements have been anchors, not sails, and Crosby needs help. If the organization is serious and true to its word about supporting Crosby in hopes that he will lead the organization’s transition from his era to the next, immediate action is required. This isn’t what anyone signed up for.

It’s time for Dubas to throw caution to the wind, send a jolt through the locker room, and rattle some cages. He can plan for 2028 another day. This day requires a Penguins shakeup and maybe sacred cows to be slaughtered, or we’re going to witness more beatdowns with alarming frequency, with no end in sight.