Pittsburgh Penguins Face Tough Decisions After Shocking Loss to NHL’s Worst Team

After going 2-1 in the first three games of their current seven-game, 15-day road trip, the Pittsburgh Penguins were publicly given a chance by their GM, Kyle Dubas, to make some noise on the rest of the trip and go from there. 

Unfortunately, they have not passed the test. Not at all.

In the three games since - all against non-playoff teams - the Penguins have gone 0-3 and have been outscored 11-3, all against teams that have a high degree of difficulty scoring goals.

Most recently - on Monday - the Penguins lost, 2-1, to the San Jose Sharks, which is the league's worst team by points percentage. Going into their matchup with the Penguins, they had 34 points - 14 less than Pittsburgh - and had a league-worst goal differential of minus-58.

After the loss, the Penguins now have the sixth-worst points percentage in the NHL, and they are 3-7 in their last 10 games - as well as 2-5 on this road trip that is, likely, going to define their season. 

"Anybody can beat anybody in this league, and it's not like we're in a position where we're sitting at the top looking down at everybody, thinking, 'oh, we're gonna get this team's best tonight,'" goaltender Alex Nedeljkovic said. "We're always going to get their best.

"We can't bank on having an easy game from the other side, we have to work for what we want to get. And, when we do, it's a great game. It's fun to watch, it's fun to play behind, it's fun for the guys to play. So, we just gotta find a way to have that urgency all the time, and we need to find it quick."

The Penguins did not find that urgency for the first 40 minutes of the game. They came out slow and flat, and they couldn't get anything generated. Former Penguin Mikael Granlund finally opened the scoring 7:41 into the second period for San Jose, and Sidney Crosby tied the game just 24 seconds into the third period on a fortunate bounce.

But young star Macklin Celebrini broke the tie just a few minutes later off of an egregious defensive zone turnover by Marcus Pettersson from below the Penguins' own goal line. The Penguins did think they tied the game with just over five minutes remaining in regulation off of another fortunate bounce - this time, courtesy of Michael Bunting - but it was called back for goaltender interference on Anthony Beauvillier.

"Do you know what goalie interference is?" head coach Mike Sullivan asked reporters after the game. "Yeah, neither do I."

In any case, the Penguins simply waited too long to ramp up the urgency in this game against the league's worst team. And they're largely losing games because of avoidable, costly mistakes - like the one Pettersson made on Celebrini's goal.

"It's tough," Nedeljkovic said. "Frustrating is a good word. It sucks that we've got to keep using it. I thought [Monday] we were good, we were fine, but, like we've been saying lately, that's not good enough to win consistently. You come out with the close games like this... right now, we're on the wrong side of them, and I think its got a lot to do with things that we can control."

And, unfortunately - what their GM decides to do this deadline is likely out of their control at this point. But, realistically, it probably - for the most part - always was.

It's, again, important to emphasize that there is not going to be an "everything-must-go fire sale." Dubas has said as much, and he made sure to reiterate that their plan to compete with Sidney Crosby and the core still in Pittsburgh while simultaneously rebuilding for the future remains the goal. 

That plan is still very much clear and in motion. And, really, if you take a look at the moves that were made this summer - and some of the ones during the season this year - it's pretty clear that this season was always meant to be a transitional one.

The idea of selling off pending-UFAs at the trade deadline was always the plan, and the team's performance likely doesn't really change that either way. That's why Dubas signed so many "fallen-out-of-favor" guys to one-year contracts - such as Matt Grzelcyk and Anthony Beauvillier - and traded for younger, "fallen-out-of-favor" pending-RFAs - such as Cody Glass and Philip Tomasino. He was hoping to get value out of those players in order to either flip or keep.

There's a decent chance that Glass and Tomasino stick around, or, at least, Tomasino. But guys like Grzelcyk and Beauvillier were never meant to stick around. Same as Marcus Pettersson. Maybe same as guys like Drew O'Connor and Jesse Puljujarvi. They're all UFAs.

If they're winning, maybe not all of them go. But, getting value for those contracts was always part of the plan, win or lose. And that's not going to change.

But, what may change a bit is "can't-refuse" types of situations with players like Rickard Rakell and Erik Karlsson. What seemed unlikely before the deadline is still, well, unlikely. But with the right offer - and an offer that includes NHL-level or NHL-ready talent in return - the Penguins just might bite by deadline day.

Now, the fact remains that - with escrow payments being cancelled for the rest of 2024-25 and the cap expected to go up even more than initially thought - the Penguins could have close to $30 million in cap space this summer with no long-term extensions to sign and no huge contracts on the team to commit to. 

Feasibly, the Penguins really do have a chance to do a major roster retool this summer, both with large amount of available cap space and with the overflowing draft cupboard they'll have for 2025.

They might have a legitimate shot at winning a bidding war for a bigger-name free agent. They'll have assets to go out and acquire some young talent.

So, yes, maybe the 2024-25 season is dead. The Penguins were never tanking on purpose, but they certainly weren't going all-out to be competitive this season, either. Maybe, just maybe, they manage to go on a Cinderella run again late this season and squeak into the playoffs, however unlikely.

Regardless, the focus was always going to be on next season. And - given recent results - it might not be the worst idea for the team to get ahead of it and shift the focus to next season right now. 

So, we await what happens on the trade front over the next couple of weeks - and, maybe, even days.