It’s time.
The Pittsburgh Penguins have lost three in a row. They’re 3-7-0 in their last ten games. A disastrous homestand kept them stagnant in the standings as the rest of the East surged around them. A dominant win in Los Angeles was quickly followed up with a disastrous loss to the Anaheim Ducks.
In a loss to the San Jose Sharks Monday night, the Penguins appeared lifeless. They had no jump, no spirit. The loss of Evgeni Malkin, week-to-week with a lower-body injury, didn’t help matters, but it was far more than that. The Penguins have been on a downward slide for several weeks now. Losing to the then-last place team (the win over the Pens vaulted the Sharks into 31st) was just another symptom of the disease.
There’s more symptoms, too. Symptoms like second-worst goaltending in the league. Symptoms like the third-worst goal differential. Symptoms like eighth-worst defense, a slumping penalty kill, constant blown leads, and scoring 18.57 fewer goals than expected, according to Natural Stat Trick.
The disease? Inadequacy. This team isn’t built for the playoffs. Plain and simple.
There will be no playoffs for the Penguins this year. MoneyPuck currently has them at 0.8% odds. Dom Luszczyszyn of The Athletic has them at a more generous but still uninspiring 3%. Their season-high odds were preseason with 33.6%. The odds dropped off after that, but the team clawed their way back to 10.2% with a win streak in December, which put them within one point of the second wildcard spot in the East.
It wasn’t enough. In the last month, the Penguins have been the third-worst team in the league. No ten-game streak can save them now.
This isn’t a failing of the roster. Most of them are on one- to two-year deals. Multiple players were cap dump acquisitions. Two — Philip Tomasino and Cody Glass — are young players that Kyle Dubas took a chance on. Most of the acquisitions have actually worked out well. Kevin Hayes — one of the cap dumps — and Tomasino and Glass have been productive additions to the team’s lineup. But that hasn’t been enough to save them from horrific goaltending and general lineup gaps.
Dubas built this lineup knowing there was a good chance it would fail. As I wrote back in November, this was his plan. He built the lineup with the long-term in mind, and if the team made the playoffs, that would have been great. He didn’t plan for them to.
Dubas’s plan has come to fruition. He’s acquired plenty of futures in his dealings this season. Now, he has an opportunity for a high draft pick in a strong draft class. The team is currently slated to pick sixth overall (though, with the lottery system, that’s never a guarantee). He’s practically guaranteed to sell at the deadline, barring some miracle resurgence by the Penguins. The real question is, how long is he selling for? Is it just for this season? Or will it be for the next one as well?
It’s a real question. The Penguins are unlikely to land the first overall or get into the top three, blocked by San Jose, Chicago and Buffalo. The Nashville Predators are 7-3 in their last ten and could climb in the points. So could Seattle, which might land the Penguins around pick four. But say whoever they choose isn’t ready for the NHL yet and goes back to juniors or the NCAA for another year. Say Rutger McGroarty isn’t quite ready for the jump from the AHL to the NHL by next season. Do you sell next year too? Do you go all in on the tank next year instead, try and land Gavin McKenna while still keeping the core around? Dubas will never sell off the core, so the tank will never be as brutal as San Jose’s or Chicago’s, but it could get ugly fast, with the stars left to struggle at the heart of it as their careers wane.
There are too many variables to predict precisely what Dubas will do. But we know one thing for sure: these Penguins ain’t it. You’re already near the bottom. Why not get all the way there?
Time to sell.
ITR 27: Trade Season Begins – Inside The Rink
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