How do the Pittsburgh Penguins bounce back?

On Wednesday’s edition of Daily Faceoff Live, Frank Seravalli and Mike McKenna were joined by The Athletic’s senior Pittsburgh Penguins writer Rob Rossi for another edition of the All 32 segment presented by DoorDash. 

Frank Seravalli: Let’s talk about those Penguins because it has been pretty lifeless the last few games. It’s kind of hard to fathom given how well they started, how strong they started. You saw Sidney Crosby burst out of the gate and then you go out west and it’s almost like the wheels fell off. What happened from your point of view? 

Rob Rossi: Well, I think they got caught up in their own way they were winning those games early, and they weren’t playing great teams early, they were outracing a lot of teams and scoring six goals at home every night. I think they went out to Edmonton and tried to play that type of game against the Oilers and the Oilers reminded them that this is the 2022-23 Penguins and not the 2012-13 Penguins, it’s a little harder to keep up to those young legs. Calgary was probably a schedule loss, Calgary had been off for three days going into that and then the Penguins were just bad going into the end of that trip in Seattle and against Vancouver. They weren’t very good against Boston, it’s hard to judge because Boston is playing so well. They had a three-goal lead, playing really sloppy with the puck in the neutral zone, their defense has been wretched. Brian Dumoulin looks slow to the point you wonder if he can be a top-four pairing in this league. Kris Letang who was sick has not played his best hockey, they are very fortunate Crosby and Malkin have been as good as they have. A lot like the Leafs, I think they’re extremely lucky to have the points that they have because they haven’t played to that point total either. 

Mike McKenna: Rob, I look at this club in Pittsburgh and I had them picked as a Stanley Cup winner for this year. I still think that can happen, but the last couple of games have been troubling. I will always look at a goalie first, Jarry has not been good in the last several. I don’t want to pin all of it on him, I look at the penalty kill for this club in Pittsburgh, and it’s been putrid. Like 28th in the NHL, they allowed another goal last night on it. Is this team really missing John Marino and Teddy Blueger that much or is there more to it as to why the penalty kill has been so poor? 

Rob Rossi: The loss of Teddy Blueger on the penalty kill has certainly hurt them but you know we heard all offseason that this would be a tough team to play against from Brian Burke and Ron Hextall, and quite frankly management didn’t make them tough to play against. They’re easy to beat right now, this penalty kill is a tire fire engulfed in a sinkhole right now, I mean they don’t do things that even bad teams do. You see four guys doing different things on the ice, I don’t know if Mike Vellucci who is their assistant coach that runs the penalty kill is getting through to them or if it’s simply a matter of personnel. But they do nothing right on that penalty kill, they’ve given up a goal in all but two games this year. They’re hovering around 70 percent and you combine that with the fact the power play has only gotten goals because the talent they can put on the ice, doesn’t seem to (have) any of the cohesiveness. The special teams have been, if there’s a level below putrid, I would put it back there. This is a team that I agree can make a deep playoff run but they need to win this special teams battle and they’re not doing that right now. I don’t know if Mike Sullivan has the answer to it. 

Frank Seravalli: A fire engulfed in a sinkhole, that’s how you know Rob Rossi is back. But I want to ask the doomsday question which is what happens if the Penguins don’t pull themselves out of this in short order? There don’t seem to be a lot of options on the table in ways Ron Hextall can turn. Mike Sullivan just signed a massive extension with the Penguins this off-season. He’s clearly not going anywhere, and I believe is now one of the highest-paid coaches in the league. Then you’ve got a situation with a roster that is mostly locked in the longer term, that is older, what can they do to pull themselves out of this if it gets to Defcon-4? 

Rob Rossi: I don’t know what they could do personnel-wise Frank. I mean, I guess if you’re FSG, the Fenway Sports Group that owns the Penguins you could consider making a management change, but I don’t know if they want to do that. But like you said Sullivans’ contract makes him a non-issue in terms of a coaching change. Not only do they have older players on long-term contracts, but a lot of those players have movement clauses. Crosby, Malkin, and Letang all have no movement clauses, and guys like Rust have limited movement clauses. So, I think you might see them explore a trade with Brian Dumoulin if they can get anybody to bite. I think that would be one of those trades that would shake up the room, but they just need to play better and be more consistent.

I know that sounds like a cliche, “You just need to play better”, but that’s really what it comes down to for them. You see the talent on this team and yes, it’s older. But you knew going into this season that the older guys were going to have to carry a large load here because quite frankly the bottom six is insufficient for a team that has Stanley Cup aspirations. So, they need to be too heavy on the front, and they’re going to need to play too heavy on the front. The question is can they figure out a way to work their cap so they can get Blueger back and make even incremental changes by keeping some young guys in the lineup in the bottom six? They only had 22 guys on the active roster when everything was healthy for them and that’s the way it’ll be for right now. Short of them just getting their heads out of you know where I’m not sure what the Penguins can do about this.  

You can watch the full episode here…