The Penguins stopped scoring. Lost 2-1 to visiting Calgary on Saturday, 1-0 at Boston on Sunday. Thus ends a six-game win streak. They got beat by two backup goaltenders.
The two defeats leave the Penguins one point out of a wild card in the Eastern Conference.
What should be their worst fears might be realized: Finishing just out of a playoff spot. Ninth or 10th in the conference. No playoff return for Sidney Crosby, not enough balls in the draft lottery where a fistful of top-six forwards beckon. (Only the bottom 11 teams are eligible to get the top two picks.)
Right now, the Penguins are 11th in the Eastern Conference. That corresponds to the 18th pick in the first round. That screams “mushy middle.”
The Penguins had an eight-game losing streak and a six-game win streak, and that’s just in the last month. Such marked streakiness and inconsistency bode poorly for the end result.
The Penguins are 6-10-7 with Kevin Hayes in the lineup, 15-4-2 without.
That doesn’t necessarily reflect on Hayes. He doesn’t get much ice time. (10:19 on Sunday at Boston.) Hayes has played OK.
It’s more about the Penguins’ lack of depth and how they can’t afford a significant player getting hurt.
The eight-game losing streak came with Evgeni Malkin out. Bryan Rust missed the last two games.
The fourth line of Noel Acciari, Blake Lizotte and Connor Dewar is a strength. Maybe that’s how you score one goal in two games, when your fourth line is a strength.
It was a shame to waste good goaltending against Calgary and Boston. (Arturs Silovs vs. Calgary, Stuart Skinner vs. Boston.)
But Sergei Murashov is the best goalie in the system right now.
If making the playoffs is a primary aim, why is Murashov with the Penguins’ Wilkes-Barre/Scranton farm team? Priorities seem scrambled.
It’s impossible to figure what the Penguins will do between now and the NHL trade deadline on March 6.
Crosby’s agent, Pat Brisson, talked before the season about his client’s divine right to be in the playoffs, mooting the possibility of a trade.
That bullied and spooked the Penguins, possibly keeping players like Rickard Rakell and Rust from being traded for future assets, and maybe making the current approach more veteran-oriented outside of Ben Kindel’s breakout performance as an 18-year-old rookie.
Witness the mangled decision-making with rookie defenseman Harrison Brunicke, and rookie winger Ville Koivunen being asked to produce, not develop. (Though the two things aren’t mutually exclusive.)
What will be the approach be at the deadline? The Penguins don’t figure to be far enough out of contention to punt.
The Penguins won’t sacrifice any future at the deadline and thus can’t add significantly beyond swapping a late-round pick for a below-the-line rental, or a player-for-player hockey trade. (The latter doesn’t often happen.)
For what they have, the Penguins have performed all right.
Dan Muse has mostly been competent in his first season as an NHL head coach, even if he deals out the occasional head-scratcher: When Rust got hurt, Muse scrambled every line but the fourth instead of just slotting in Hayes at Rust’s spot on Crosby’s line. The result: one goal in two games. (If Koivunen were in Pittsburgh and not Wilkes-Barre/Scranton, his youth and energy make him a better fit on every line but the fourth.)
There’s no need to be unhappy or disappointed about the Penguins, who are doing a bit better than expected.
But I know what the destination can’t be.
And that seems exactly where the Penguins are headed.