The Pittsburgh Penguins suffered their eighth blown multi-goal lead of the season in Tuesday Night’s 3-2 overtime loss to the Tampa Bay Lightning. That’s now eight times out of 21 games. Leading 2-0 after forty minutes, the Penguins saw a two-goal lead once again evaporate for the second straight game in the third period.

The Penguins started strong. They were back pressuring in waves that was seeing them stifle the Lightning early on zone entries and offensively there were signs of life in the Penguins getting to the tough areas in he net-front area. First 20-30 minutes of play, Pittsburgh was putting a workman-like performance together. As the game progressed, though, all of that started to go out the window.

Tampa Bay despite trailing, kept gradually carrying the play and out-attempted the Penguins 57-22 over the final forty minutes of regulation. The third period was as lopsided in play as you would see. Tampa out-chanced the Penguins 18-3 in the third period that saw the Lightning force overtime.

Overall, in the game the Lightning out-shot the Penguins 35-19 and a staggering 85-38 edge in shot attempts.

Mike Sullivan after the game was as heated as he’s been all season in calling out his club.

“We have to compete harder. We need more guys to compete harder and pay more attention to detail. And we need to take more pride in playing defense,” Sullivan said.

Is the language Sullivan is speaking basically an indictment on him and his coaching staff? Kyle Dubas sacked him with the roster he gave him but lack of compete, pride and attention of details continue to be signs of a group that can’t get by on talent anymore and doesn’t want to do the hard work it takes to off-set other areas.

We all know the logistics surrounding Sullivan and how many facets there are if the Penguins decided to move on from him. Last thing they want to do is do it in-season out of respect for the two-time Stanley Cup Winner but is management’s hands eventually going to be forced?

Things are headed down a path where Sullivan is no longer being evaluated on wins and losses. Development, structure/attention to details, a team always playing hard as more young players come into the lineup is of more importance in the evaluation process and this staff isn’t getting A’s and B’s on that front. They’re more in the mold of bringing home D’s.

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These were not the Tampa Bay Lightning of three years ago. They no longer have three legit scoring lines that come at your in waves, but it was still night and day of the talent disparity. However, that’s not to say there should be excuses for how below average the Penguins are with the little things on the ice that to make up for the lack of talent, they have to be near elite at to overachieve this season.

Assistant coach David Quinn who netted a three-year contract this summer from the Penguins, is not only best friends with Mike Sullivan, but also has a very close relationship to FSG chairman Tom Werner that was not realized until very recently. Some inside the organization believe Dubas could sell To read this insider news, subscribe to get “Inside Access”!

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