The Pittsburgh Penguins on Saturday Night dropped their 14th game out their last 19 and you’re seeing game after game where the Penguins are overwhelmed in just all three phases against even average teams like Utah that can skate, play an actual system and oh year play hard.

This hockey club is getting obliterated on multiple occasions now. Nine of the Penguins 12 losses this season have been by three goals or more and in many of these it like five or six goal losses.;

6-0 loss to the Rangers, 7-1 loss to the Stars, 5-1 and 4-1 losses to the Hurricanes, 6-2 loss to the Blue Jackets, 4-1 and 6-3 losses to the Jets, 4-0 loss to the Oilers where they gave up almost 100 shot attempts and now Utah comes into the building on a three-game losing streak and skate all over the Penguins and deliver a 6-1 win.

The Penguins enter Sunday with the NHL’s Worst Minus-34 Goal Differential and the next closest team is San Jose at Minus-27. That’s an indictment on the players and coaching staff.

The box score Saturday night was pretty telling of the eye test. Sidney Crosby lone goal scorer in the game, had 7 shots on goal. No other Penguins forward had more than 2 shots on goal (Evgeni Malkin & Noel Acciari 2 SOG). The other nine forwards had 1 shot on goal or less. That’s a team just going through the motions.

This line the organization has tried to tow has clearly failed where ‘we think the older core is still good enough to keep the team interesting combined with what they feel is an elite coach behind the bench, while the General Manager tries to prioritize the future.’

It’s bombing. The Penguins fan base is spoiled, there’s no denying that, and the team is heading down a path where they’re going to lose the average fan for now and the even the diehards are not going spend $100’s of dollars a night to go watch a team that doesn’t play with any heart. The Philadelphia Flyers for example is a rebuilding team that lacks star young talent, but they keep the fan base interested because they have an identity and play hard every night. The head coach has laid the foundation and culture a city can buy into.

The Penguins have to figure something here on this end and some of their older core is doing no favors in setting the example.

Kris Letang is just absolutely shot as a player. The signs were there dating back to last season and their being reinforced this season. Diminish ability, disinterested defensively, former GM Ron Hextall now looks like a genius where he so called disrespected Letang with constant 2-3 year offers before FSG stepped in during June 2022 talks and forced Hextall’s hands to do the six year deal. There’s even times the great Sidney Crosby has looked disinterested at times this season and it’s not even Thanksgiving yet. Could the team lose an Evgeni Malkin mentally as season progresses? This group has won so much, we’re already seeing this is not going to be as easy for them to want to bring it every night, especially in the dark days of January and February.

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