DENVER -- The Penguins traveled more than 4,500 miles during their three-game road trip and, man, they have precious little to show for it.
Actually, that might be a little generous.
Monday night's 4-2 loss to the Avalanche at the Pepsi Center, to the Central Division's last-place team, was their second in this three-game Western trip that mercifully came to an end. It also was their fifth loss in seven games after a deeply disappointing 2-3 homestand.
Mike Sullivan was pretty much seething afterward.
"It starts with just a sense of urgency and winning puck battles, and protecting pucks, making smart line changes," Sullivan said. "I thought we gave up some chances again just on the sloppy line changes where we didn't change smart. We didn't put the pucks in the right areas. We put our teammates in some difficult spots for the guys coming on the ice. We've got to control what we can in order to be more difficult to play against."
Since the start of December, the Penguins haven't been that. They're 4-5, and three of the four wins came against the Sabres (twice) and the Coyotes (barely). The other was in overtime against the Islanders, but even that was after blowing a late lead.
That's not exactly the stuff of two-time defending Stanley Cup champions.
Monday merely confirmed what had been evident for a few weeks now: This is a team in need of a shakeup, like the one Jim Rutherford was referencing prior to the loss in Las Vegas that opened the trip. And don't be surprised if that comes sooner rather than later, though the NHL's holiday roster freeze goes into effect Tuesday night and runs through Dec. 28.
Still, whoever is brought in and whenever, they'll have to bring some serious energy. Because these guys looked worn out Monday after the 10-minute mark of the first period. They looked, yet again, decidedly slower than their opponent.
When was the last time anyone could say that about the Pittsburgh Penguins?
1. The stars need to be the stars.
Evgeni Malkin certainly was a star Monday. But he was the only one.
The Penguins' best pure finisher displayed that at 1:25 of the third period, corralling an airborne rebound at the right side of the net, dropping to one knee and somehow shoveling the puck inside the post from close to zero angle behind Semyon Varlamov:
Malkin had seven of the Penguins' 32 shots, and his goal rejuvenated them for, oh, about 30 seconds.
Sidney Crosby was most conspicuously quiet in another battle of Cole Harbour with Nathan MacKinnon. Score this round to the Avalanche star, with one assist. Crosby didn't even have a shot, the fourth time that's happened this season and second time on this trip.
It happened just four times all of last season.
He was also just 6-19 on faceoffs, minus-2 and his 27.27 Corsi For rating was a team low.
But it wasn't like the captain didn't have opportunities. For the second game in a row on his first shift, he passed up a shot, this time trying to stickhandle into the slot instead of swinging wide to his lethal backhand:
Moments later he gave the puck up on a pass back to the point.
Crosby, who wasn't available to the media afterward, hasn't scored a goal in Denver since Jan. 10, 2009. Well, at least that season ended well.
2. So many weapons, so little results.
The one facet that had been going well for the Penguins, their streak of penalty-killing perfection, ended at eight games and 24 opportunities.
With Ian Cole off for a brutally obvious crosschecking penalty, one of four infractions the team committed in the second, Tyson Barrie scored his second goal of the game at 5:56:
With Carl Soderberg camped in front of the crease, Barrie's shot zipped through traffic but trickled over the line after nipping Matt Murray's pads.
Murray was sharp despite the three goals on 36 shots, but the same can't be said for the power play at the other end. The Penguins went 0 for 3 Monday and 0 for 10 on the trip. Their last power-play goal came Dec. 9 against the Maple Leafs, five games ago.
Get this: On 10 power plays out here, they totaled 10 shots on goal.
Missing Patric Hornqvist didn't help matters, but with the offensive weaponry that the NHL's fourth-ranked power play has, it's inexplicable. At least it seemed that way to Malkin, who answered my question on the subject this way:
Sullivan offered this explanation, hitting on themes that have applied to the Penguins in all situations: "I don't think we've been as good. We haven't executed as well. We haven't made good decisions. We get opportunities to shoot and we choose not to. Sometimes our shot selection when we choose to shoot might not be the right time or the opportune time. I just think it boils down to execution and being on the same page."
For a team that ranks 28th in the NHL at scoring 5-on-5, the Penguins have been able to get by largely on the strength of their power play. Now, they can't even say that.
3. A sloppy second did the Penguins in.
When Chad Ruhwedel scored this seeing-eye wrister from the half-wall at 10:39 of the first to tie, his first goal of the season, it had to be a sign that the Penguins' puck luck had changed, or perhaps of a Christmas miracle:
Except it wasn't. A Josh Archibald floater in the second, from a similar low-scoring area, trickled under Varlamov's pads, but stopped ... agonizingly on the goal line and pinned against the pipe.
Sometimes you have to make your own luck, and the Penguins' problems begin and end with their inability to play a full 60 minutes. It's not just better starts they need, but also better middles and ends.
"We got outplayed in the second period, badly, and I thought they were hungrier than we were," Sullivan said. "We took penalties. We took four penalties in the second period. That doesn't help. But we got outplayed. They were better than us."
The Penguins outshot Colorado, 18-13, in the first, then had six shots in the second, eight in the third.
"First period, we had plenty of shots but one goal," said Malkin. "It's like we score three or four, we win game for sure. But it's right now, we can't score anymore. It's tough to win when it's 20 shots and just one goal. It's not a great percent."
Nope, it's about five, or three points lower than their already-low season average.
"It's a combination of puck luck and a combination of some lulls in the game that are costing us," Ryan Reaves said. "We eliminate those, and the pucks will start going in for us."
4. The fourth line was their best line. For real.
That was the assessment of Sullivan, but it was also fairly obvious to anyone who watched the trio of Reaves, Archibald and Carter Rowney outwork everyone.
The numbers back that up. Reaves played perhaps his best game in a Penguins sweater, registering an outstanding and team-best 83.53 Corsi For rating. Archibald had two hits, two blocks and a 68.42 Corsi For. Rowney's faceoff win set up Ruhwedel's goal.
The addition of Archibald, a small but feisty winger who never met a corner he didn't like, seemed to bring the energy as advertised. A healthy scratch for all but two games this season, he's unquestionably earned more action.
"He was hunting pucks well," Reaves told me. "We were responsible in our own end. He was really hard on the puck and hunting them down and grinding them in the corners. I think both those guys were doing a really good job."
Of course, if there were any justice for the fourth line, they might have been able to tie on this flurry around the Colorado net with six minutes remaining:
"I saw it hit the post and kind of disappear," Reaves said of his attempt from his knees. "I knew I shot it right, I don't know how far right I shot it. I was hoping it trickled behind him or went off something or somebody could get to it. Those were the bounces."
5. It doesn't get any easier.
When the Penguins return to Pittsburgh on Tuesday, they will find themselves in sixth place in the Metropolitan Division and just two points outside the final wild card spot.
What's either good or bad is that six of their next eight games, beginning Thursday against the Blue Jackets at PPG Paints Arena, are against division opponents. The Penguins are 4-2 inside the Metro, but that stretch still looks ominous in that the game Jan. 2 in Philadelphia will mark No. 41 or the halfway point. That's where Rutherford insinuated he'd draw his line in the sand for keeping this team together.
Maybe he won't wait that long.