The Pittsburgh Penguins still have games in hand on the rest of the Eastern Conference, yes.
Unless they’re planning on producing a 10-game winning streak, it probably doesn’t matter. And there’s precious little evidence to suggest something like that will happen.
The once mighty Penguins’ offense failed them again, this time Saturday in Winnipeg when they endured a dreadful first period and unsuccessfully climbed uphill for the rest of the evening in a 2-1 loss.
Tristan Jarry was brilliant in defeat but Bryan Rust’s lone goal wasn’t enough for the Penguins.
Trusty Rusty with the perfect stick placement 🏒 pic.twitter.com/9hEGuGISJ2
— Pittsburgh Penguins (@penguins) February 11, 2024
“First period was not good,” Rust said. “Let’s leave it at that.”
Something changed in the middle of January when the Penguins had four days off before heading to Las Vegas. At that point, they were playing their finest hockey of the season, and were in the midst of a 10-3-3 run, fresh off a 3-0 win against Seattle.
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Since then, they are 2-4-1. They blew a 2-0 lead in Vegas. They scored into their own net in Arizona. They had some luck on their side in a couple of dramatic comebacks during this stretch. Then came their brief trip to Minnesota and Manitoba, where the Penguins didn’t necessarily play horrible hockey, but were striking in their inability to will offense when it was necessary.
And now, the standings tell a pretty disturbing story.
The Penguins are seven points behind Detroit and Toronto for the final wild-card spot. They’re nine points behind the suddenly hot Philadelphia Flyers for third place in the Metropolitan Division.
“We didn’t set ourselves up to play the game that I think gives us the best chance to win,” coach Mike Sullivan said. “I thought we responded. The second period, I thought we competed hard. The third period … but we’re chasing the game at that point.”
They’re chasing a bunch of young, talented teams in the standings, too. And while the Eastern Conference is bloated with mediocrity, it’s pretty hard to imagine that the NHL’s oldest teams will have the energy to roar through March and April, earning a playoff spot during the busiest stretch in this season’s schedule.
Up next for the Penguins is a home game on Wednesday against the Florida Panthers, perhaps the Eastern Conference’s best team.
10 postgame observations
• If you’re still reading, you’re probably already depressed, so I’m going to begin this with a positive.
Jarry was brilliant in this game. The Jets should have scored four or five goals, at least. The Penguins were incredibly loose defensively in the first period, giving up odd-man rushes left and right. Their defensive zone coverage was poor. They were out-muscled early and often by the bigger Jets.
And yet Jarry, who always plays well against the Jets, was simply sensational. He was calm but athletic at the same time, which is a pretty tricky thing for a goaltender. He kept his team competitive when it had no right to be in the game.
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Jarry is playing his best hockey of the season and his outstanding play is a big indictment of how bad the Penguins are right now. Imagine what their record would be if they were receiving average goaltending.
• I didn’t think the Penguins’ power play could dip to a new level of ineptitude, but I hated what I saw from both units in this game.
Pardon me for being a broken record, but the lack of urgency is simply appalling. Watching Evgeni Malkin and Erik Karlsson play catch like it’s a lazy summer afternoon at Schenley Park is simply maddening.
Watch other power plays around the league. You’ll see the urgency. You’ll see players putting themselves in aggressive, offensive-minded positions to score. You’ll see players crashing the net. You’ll see players with a shoot-first mentality.
Then, you watch the Penguins, and you see players receiving passes in the most defensive postures possible. You’ll see an utter reluctance to shoot.
To their credit, the Penguins scored three times on the power play in their previous two games. That’s great. But in terms of the eye test, what we saw in Winnipeg was particularly dreadful.
• Reilly Smith sure isn’t the answer on the power play. Yikes.
He’s hardly the only problem on the top unit, but he isn’t bringing anything to the table. I was all for the decision to split Sidney Crosby and Malkin on the power play, and if the Penguins want to keep doing that, fine.
But the same problems still exist. And the big guys are all going to be back on the same unit sooner rather than later, anyway, were I a betting man.
What a complete mess.
• It’s time to have a real conversation about Malkin.
He has 10 points in his last 15 games. Only once in his past 15 games has Malkin produced a multiple-point game.
I realize he isn’t exactly blessed with great linemates right now. He doesn’t get to play with Jake Guentzel like Crosby does. I get it.
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But watching Malkin play is getting pretty painful. He had the puck at the blue line with 30 seconds remaining in the third period when the goaltender was pulled, and he held onto the puck for almost 10 seconds. He didn’t know what to do. It was a rough game for him, one of the worst I recall him playing.
I was struck by how unthreatening Malkin looked all night. He’s an all-time great and I respect him immensely as a player and as a person. But he has never looked as old as he did in this game. He’s hardly the Penguins’ only problem, but he might be their biggest. Oh, he’s better than many players on this team, sure. But they’re designed to win with Malkin playing at a certain level. He’s no longer at that level. We will see little bursts from him, and he’ll still put up occasional numbers because he’s a first-ballot Hall of Famer, and such talent doesn’t evaporate overnight.
But his decline is getting difficult to ignore.
• I didn’t like Guentzel’s game — he hasn’t looked himself since the NHL All-Star Game.
I wonder if all the chatter about his contract situation is starting to take a toll.
He made a horrible play on the Jets’ first goal, firing a high-risk pass when the Penguins were already playing poorly. It’s precisely the kind of play Sullivan doesn’t want the Penguins making.
The finest Danish dish on the menu 👨🍳 🍎 pic.twitter.com/ovHqCoMlZU
— Winnipeg Jets (@NHLJets) February 11, 2024
• I thought Karlsson was very good for a second straight game. He carried the offense at times, made a beautiful play to set up Rust’s goal, and skated beautifully.
However, he displayed precisely on that Winnipeg goal how you aren’t supposed to play a two-on-one as a defenseman. His job is to take away the pass. He failed miserably.
• John Ludvig replaced P-O Joseph in the lineup. I thought Ludvig was fine in his return from an injury.
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Joseph is bringing absolutely nothing to the table right now, so I’d give Ludvig a string of games. Couldn’t hurt.
• I don’t recall ever seeing a bigger man play smaller than Ryan Graves. It’s fine that he isn’t a physical player. Not everyone is. But you’ve got to use the body you’ve been blessed with. Think about Jordan Staal. He’s not a physical player. He doesn’t take runs at people. He’s not a big hitter. But he knows how to use his massive body to his advantage.
Graves looks like he’s trying to make himself small on the ice.
• Rickard Rakell looks utterly lost. He was on the ice for both goals against, he took a bad penalty and was generally useless in the offensive zone once again.
He averaged 0.34 goals per game last season, which is about a goal in every three games. This season, he’s averaging 0.13 goals per game.
He isn’t a presence. He looks completely out of sync every night. I haven’t a clue what the Penguins are going to do with him, but his lack of production is a massive problem.
• The Penguins looked like an old, over-the-hill, heavyweight fighter at the end of his career during the final minute of this game. They looked that way in the first period, too.
That might seem hyperbolic, but that’s what I saw.
This team isn’t giving Kyle Dubas much reason to keep it together. Because of their poor start, they couldn’t afford to hit the skids like this.
The Penguins are in big, big trouble.
(Photo of Nino Niederreiter scoring against Pittsburgh’s Tristan Jarry in the first period: Darcy Finley / NHLI via Getty Images)
