The Penguins 4-3 shootout loss to the Columbus Blue Jackets Saturday night was another microcosm of the 2023-2024 Pittsburgh Penguins. In the loss Pittsburgh allowed a shorthanded goal off a Kris Letang gaffe in the first period and things unraveled quickly in the third period when holding a multi-goal lead for a mere couple seconds

At 8:59 of the third, Rickard Rakell gives Pittsburgh a 3-1 lead off a great individual 1-on-1 goal, something that was reminiscent of ‘Last Season’ Rakell. Nine seconds later Kirill Marchenko makes it a 3-2 game and it was just a matter of time before it was a tied hockey game. Columbus put their foot on the gas and Zach Werenski ties it up, 2:29 after the Marchenko goal. Pittsburgh never got control of the hockey game back. They were out-attempted 6-1 in overtime and were fortunate to have had an opportunity to still try to get two points in the shootout.

How do the Penguins fix this glaring issue that has cost them a number of winnable games dating back to last season? The Kirill Marchenko goal wasn’t a situation of the Penguins getting caught with their 4th line out against oppositions top line. Pittsburgh had their big boys on the ice immediately after the Rakell goal and they still got smoked with poor awareness off the draw and gap control from the D. There’s a massive attention to details and mindset issue at times from the top-on-down that no one has solutions too fixing.

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Big Picture Outlook Takeaways

All this talk of the Penguins top priority this summer of needing to rebuild the bottom-6 like Malkin and Crosby are 29-30 years old is off base. That should be the easy part. There are in-house candidates to poke around the edges and you can always find depth options on the wing or target different style of bottom-6 forwards than the direction Penguins went in 23/24 with the defensive minded route. The hardest task at hand is the Penguins are at least a good two Top-Six Forwards short when rebranding this roster for next season. Not enough bodies who can create their own offense, hold onto pucks to let plays develop and the two-game set with Columbus really highlighted that again. Thought that was the biggest difference when evaluating Pittsburgh’s Top-6 vs Columbus’ Top-6 and it’s not like Columbus is loaded with an abundance of true Top-6 players.

— Drew O’Connor now has goals in three straight games and since the San Jose game, his play has really taken off. Long-term he’s being stationed out of place in a top-line role but guys who can move up and down like him can be so valuable. Best case scenario for Penguins would be if they could build a third line around O’Connor. Don’t see this happening, but there are some in the organization who have been intrigued about trying O’Connor out at center as he has experience playing center in the past at other levels, though, I wouldn’t mess with a good thing. [/hide]

— Are we allowed to say Alex Nylander looks like a legitimate player right now for the Blue Jackets? Poise with the puck was very impressive Saturday night.

— Fascinating goaltending decision coming up Monday vs the Rangers. Alex Nedeljkovic was good again with 35 saves on 38 shots and has now made four straight starts (2-0-2) and appeared in Pittsburgh’s last five games. If he starts Monday, it would be five straight starts and six appearances in 10 days. The belief yesterday is Jarry was going to go To read this insider news, subscribe to get “Inside Access”!

— Will say it again Kris Letang worries me a lot more than Evgeni Malkin when looking towards what you’re going to get out of the core next season. Father time is undefeated and it’s creeping up on Letang’s ability to be a No. 1 pairing defenseman. Malkin is a lot easier next season to shelter and still get 18-22 goals, 50+ points out of him.

— Michael Bunting played just one shift in the third, leaving the ice a minute into the period and Jesse Puljujarvi who had stacked a pretty good run of games together still only saw 6:31 of ice time in the loss. Puljujarvi had 3:47 of ice time through the first two periods.

— Sam Poulin saw just two shifts in the third and is only seeing 5-6 minutes a game, but he’s really struggled with his decision making and is not making plays fast enough with the puck. Will be something to keep an eye on.

— There are people in the Penguins organization who feel Valtteri Puustinen’s ceiling is a more skilled version of Tyler To read this insider news, subscribe to get “Inside Access”!

— Post Trade Deadline biggest disappointment for the Penguins internally was not getting across the finish line in trading Reilly Smith to Los Angeles. League sources say an injury to Carl Grundstrom complicated To read this insider news, subscribe to get “Inside Access”!

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