Is the Pittsburgh Penguins season slipping away already? A bad loss tonight vs the Vancouver Canucks and it could be game over already. It’s not just the 3-5-1 record for a club with no margin of error. It a myriad of issues where the talent isn’t good enough anymore to overcome certain games you want to take off like this group does.

The Penguins are a poor system team. The Penguins are poor at the little things. There’s no prime Crosby or Jake Guentzel running around to hide things. The cores not even at last year’s level where you could cover up some areas and hover around.

You can never deny trends.

Top Contenders are running the Penguins out of the building.

Edmonton just completely destroyed the Penguins in all facets. The Rangers game was bad, the Hurricanes game was probably even worse in how lopsided the play was; Last night’s performance — it’s hard to come up with words. Dressing the Wilkes Barre/Scranton Penguins might have given the Oilers a better fight. —

Pittsburgh gave up 90 attempts/ 50 shots on goal, 26 high danger chances and 52 scoring chances. That is not a typo. Just a massive number, Edmonton produced 52 scoring chances. Pittsburgh could have lost 8 or 9-0 in this one.

The system issues are not changing till the coach changes.

Less than two minutes the game, Ryan Graves who is supposed to be a so-called defensive defenseman makes a blatant pinch (which is what the system calls for) but this is what’s constantly wrong with the Penguins play away from the puck. Everyone has the same priorities. Graves should never be pinching in this spot. Ryan Graves should probably never pinch under any circumstance. He’s a cone out there.

It’s not just system issues……Inexcusable mental defensive miscues are constant from players who are supposed to be Pittsburgh’s best defenders. The very next shift and this is all less than two minutes into the game, Marcus Pettersson gets himself into no man’s land and it’s almost a tic-tac toe goal in tight.

We knew coming into the season the Penguins were going to be a poor defensive team. There’s a system issue but it’s not all system. There were a number of signs last season after January Kris Letang was shot as a top-2 level pairing d-man. Almost 10 games in he looks ready for retirement and its a below average #1 and #2 pairing group. Those were obvious in August. They need help from the system but they also need to try themselves to off-set diminishing skill. But, the biggest problem with the Penguins defensively is no one wants to do the hard work. What’s been fascinating is at least through the first month you’d think there would be an adrenaline rush, especially after last year’s late run where the mentality would be ‘we have to do the little things’ to win with the talent on this roster. Instead, many are just going through the motions when the puck is in their own zone.

None more stunning has been Sidney Crosby’s lethargic play in the defensive zone. We’re not just talking a poor game or two. It’s been a trend all month. I never expected to see that day. Father Time can hit even a superstar like Crosby at any point when he’s at the age he is, but Crosby’s lack of interest in playing the d-zone has just been stunning. You don’t see many stops and starts from Crosby anymore in the defensive zone.

~So much for the core being so motivated with their own GM not believing in them ~

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