14 -- That's the number of days it's been since the Penguins have won a hockey game.
13 -- That's the number of standings points the Penguins have missed out on during that time.
In yet another game in which the Penguins showed some pretty good things and, perhaps, even played well enough to win, they still managed to fall short of victory, dropping their seventh game in a row, a 3-2 loss to the Kraken here at PPG Paints Arena on Saturday night.
It's not just that they lost -- again -- it's the fashion in which they lost, which is becoming a concerning trend through the early goings of the season.
"Our play 5-on-5 in the last few games (has) been good, it’s just a little breakdown here and there. It happens, (it) costs the game."
That was Kris Letang, as melancholy as I've seen him, sitting at his stall, fielding questions from the media after the game.
"Right now, the wins are not easy to come with, and sometimes in hockey you deserve some and some you don’t deserve, but right now it seems like we’re not getting any. We have to regroup and just grind it, and eventually we’ll get out of it."
The first section of Letang's remarks hold true on both counts.
Including Saturday's loss, the Penguins have controlled over 50% of the 5-on-5 expected goals in each of their past four games, and five of their past six. But there's more to hockey than just 5-on-5 play, and there's certainly more to hockey than taking moral victories for out-xG'ing your opponent.
If you took the Penguins' best, I don't know, 30-minute stretch from the game, and extrapolated it over the entirety of regulation, the Penguins -- undoubtedly -- wouldn't be mired in their longest winless streak since Sidney Crosby's rookie season. Per hockey historian and stat guru Bob Grove, the Penguins have not gone seven games in a row without a win since they went 0-5-2 from Jan. 26 to Feb. 8 in 2006. From Jan. 6 to Feb. 8 that same season, the Penguins went 1-15-2.
Right now, as Letang pointed out, the Penguins seemingly can't help themselves but to have debilitating breakdowns on a game-by-game basis. It's to the point that those breakdowns are, quite literally, wiping away all of the positives.
Just look at Brian Dumoulin getting caught in no-man's land a little under eight minutes into the third period, allowing plenty of room for Yanni Gourde to take advantage of a fortuitous bounce:
Sure, you can chalk that up to being unlucky. You can also question what in the world Dumoulin's objective here was, considering he wasn't picking anyone up, and wasn't defending any sort of pass to the weak side of the ice because, get this: No one was there!
I'm not expecting Dumoulin to be standing right on top of Tristan Jarry, but this just exposes Dumoulin's severely diminished anticipation skills and awareness. It has been straight-up jarring to watch him go from a respectable shutdown defender to whatever reactionary blue-liner we're currently seeing.
Dumoulin also was center-stage on Brandon Tanev's go-ahead goal with under four minutes to go in regulation:
Here's what I don't get: Dumoulin physically engaged Tanev right up until the puck went below the Penguins' goal line. When that happened, Dumoulin seemingly completely forgot about Tanev and locked his eyes on the puck. And he still allowed a pass to get through him to the heart of the slot. Not even a single shoulder-check. Stick wasn't flush to the ice. Sprawling to the ice and away from the play.
Dumoulin wasn't the only one to screw up on that sequence, either, as I'm not sure how necessary or practical it was for Jake Guentzel to pressure below the goal line from that angle. Guentzel, at least, is tasked with scoring goals. Not preventing them from happening, like Dumoulin is supposed to be doing.
"You look at the game as a whole and, you know, we did a lot of good things, but we’re making a few mistakes, and when you’re losing, that’s magnified even more," Crosby said.
Maybe what's not being magnified enough, at least by the Penguins themselves, is just how much of a liability Dumoulin has become.
Including the two goals against he was on the ice for on Saturday, Dumoulin has been on the ice for an even-strength goal against in seven of the past eight games. In four of those games, Dumoulin was on the ice for multiple even-strength goals against. But he continues to start every game partnered with Letang.
I asked Mike Sullivan following the game if the coaching staff had considered toying around with the defense pairings, the same way they did with the forward lines.
"We have, if you've been watching," he told me.
Oh, I've been watching.
"Consistently," I clarified to Sullivan.
"We have," Sullivan said again. "There’s been lots of different combinations going out over the boards on the blue line. You’ve seen a fair amount of P.O (Joseph) playing with Kris Letang, you’ve seen Dumo play with Jeff Petry, you’ve seen Jan Rutta play with Marcus Petterson. There’s been a lot of that going on in the middle of the game, game-to-game. We’re trying to figure out what we can do as a coaching staff to try to get a spark here, and moving people around throughout the course of the game is part of that."
Technically, everything Sullivan said is true. But quite frankly, I'm talking about much more than the -- checks notes -- whopping 3:25 of ice-time Joseph and Letang spent together at 5-on-5 on Saturday, versus the 11:51 Dumoulin spent with Letang.
There's tinkering with things in-game, along with the natural combo changes that come along after special teams work, and there's making legitimate change and, at the very least, giving it a chance to stick.
Joseph appears to be playing the best NHL hockey of his career, and he even told me as much on Saturday morning before the game. And yet, while opponents continue to fill the net with Dumoulin on the top pairing, Joseph's role remains rather minimal compared to what it could -- or should -- be currently.
While Dumoulin's performance and role might be the Penguins' most glaring issue, it certainly isn't the only one.
What about the man with three goals in his last 51 games, Kasperi Kapanen, completely missing a yawning cage during the first period with the game still scoreless?
$3.2 million cap hit, this season and next. One goal and 15 shots on goal through 12 games this season. And he played over an entire minute more than Danton Heinen on Saturday? Uncle.
The way I see it, the Penguins simply aren't good or talented enough across the board not to maximize anything and everything they can throughout the lineup. That means taking a chance on a Joseph-Letang pairing for more than the several minutes per game they're currently getting, which is almost entirely due to Dumoulin and Rutta working as a pairing on the penalty kill.
Not to be forgotten, that also means reversing a change that never should have been made in the first place: Swapping Bryan Rust and Rickard Rakell again.
It's visually and statistically obvious that the Penguins' top-six is more balanced and effective at both ends of the ice when Rakell is with Crosby and Rust is with Evgeni Malkin.
I've written ad nauseam about the chemistry and success between Crosby and Rakell, and I've also highlighted what made the Jason Zucker-Malkin-Rust line one of the NHL's best lines to start the season. Such a change was ever made in the first place because ...?
Earlier in the week, I asked Sullivan to walk me through the decision to flip the two, which was met with: "I'm not gonna walk you through the details of why we make the decisions that we make."
He did go on to say that a heavy factor was the intent to give Crosby and Malkin "what they need to do what they do best."
There's not much of anything the players can do about lineup decisions, but I asked Letang what he believes the Penguins can do to minimize glaring mistakes at the most inopportune times.
"I mean, you go back to the basics, you just try to grind it defensively," Letang told me. "With the talent that we have, we’ll score some goals, there’s no doubt about it, so maybe just not look to fill the net and maybe just play a simple game and try to get goals after that."
That'd be a great start.
Everything is going against the Penguins right now, and that includes themselves. Hockey is a chaotic, variance-driven sport. That's all the more reason to try and give yourself every possible competitive advantage you have at your disposal, but the Penguins simply aren't doing that right now, and it's snowballing into a giant avalanche with the other problems of varying severity throughout the team.
JOE SARGENT / GETTY
Sidney Crosby and Seattle's Carson Soucy Saturday at PPG Paints Arena.
MORE FROM THE GAME
• Crosby has been pretty quiet lately, but he nearly willed the Penguins to victory all by himself on Saturday. He opened the scoring for the Penguins in the second period, burying a one-timer from the slot past Martin Jones:
Crosby then picked up the primary assist on Guentzel's goal in the third period to make it a 2-2 game:
After six games in a row without a helper en route to the milestone, that was assist No. 900 for Crosby in his career, making him the sixth-fastest player in league-history to reach that mark:
900 for #87!
— Penguins PR (@PenguinsPR) November 6, 2022
With his assist on Jake Guentzel's goal, Sidney Crosby became the sixth-fastest player in NHL history to record 900 career assists. pic.twitter.com/MqLdAKqfvZ
Crosby now has six goals and eight assists in 12 games this season.
• Crosby's brilliant night didn't end there. He nearly set-up Guentzel for another goal with a bank-pass to himself off the back of the net before sending the puck out front:
And finally, Crosby nearly brought the house down late in the game with this filthy dangle against Justin Schultz off the rush:
Those flashes of prime 87 will never, ever get old.
• It's flying under the radar due to the team's recent performance, but how about Guentzel picking up right where he left off last postseason? He's got six goals in eight games so far -- this coming after potting eight goals in seven games against the Rangers back in May.
He legitimately has blossomed into one the game's best scorers, and it probably isn't all that out of the question to think he's on the cusp of being the team's best player. Crosby still holds that title, and likely will for a while longer, but it's closer than you might think.
His two-point night gives him 10 for the season.
• Jarry certainly isn't to blame for Saturday's loss, or really any of the losses throughout the losing streak, but how much is he really doing to pull the Penguins out of trouble when they need him? He had a stellar start to the season, but he has given up three or more goals in each of his last five games. He has posted a save percentage above .900 just once in those five games (.906 against the Blue Jackets on Oct. 22).
I've also started to notice that his dreaded habit of sinking into his crease is starting to make its way back into his game. He now has a .903 save percentage and 3.38 goals against average in his eight games (all starts) this season.
It goes without saying, but the Penguins need him to be far better if they have hopes of turning it around and actually doing something with their season.
• The locker room was understandably dejected after the game. They know they're digging themselves a hole that might be too steep to climb out of if things don't turn around in a hurry, which is what makes it even more baffling as to why they haven't been able to put one -- just one -- complete performance together recently.
"We’ve just got to dig in a little bit more, we’ve got to become more determined, we’ve got to, I think, be more vigilant in some of the critical moments of the game," Sullivan said.
• The Penguins' power-play went 0-for-3 in this one and, ultimately, could have been the difference-maker in the game if they were able to capitalize at all. They had a couple of OK looks, but also suffered from some of the frustrating mistakes that have been prevalent for much of the season.
"I think we have looks, we don’t convert," Letang said of the power play. "Passing too much, maybe we need to simplify things. Just a quick shot to try to get some rebounds, but I don’t know, I think we’re trying to — like we say, ‘pass into the net,’ instead of just trying to grind it out."
• Rust nearly scored a goal on a delayed Kraken penalty in the first period, but after the referee signaled a goal and the horn came on, video review determined the puck never crossed the line:
Rust knew it was coming back from the start.
• Drew O'Connor logged a team-low 4:31 of ice-time in this one. I don't think he's been great, but I don't think he's deserving of such low usage, either. Regardless, this team's bottom-six -- and penalty-kill -- really misses Teddy Blueger right now.
• Speaking of, the Penguins' penalty-kill might've had its best showing of the season. Taylor Haase has more on that here.
• Rakell and Petry tied for the team-lead in hits with four apiece.
• I really, really like Matty Beniers. He was a lot of fun to watch on Saturday. 20 years old and he's out there grinding veterans along the wall for possession one shift, then the next shift he's turning on a dime to evade pressure and to start the breakout himself. He's going to be a star.
• Thanks, as always, for reading!
THE ESSENTIALS
THE HIGHLIGHTS
THE THREE STARS
As selected at PPG Paints Arena:
1. Brandon Tanev, Kraken RW
2. Yanni Gourde, Kraken LW
3. Jake Guentzel, Penguins LW
THE INJURIES
• Jeff Carter has been out with a lower-body injury since last week in Seattle. He skated with his teammates for the first time since then on Saturday morning. His status remains day-to-day.
• Blueger has been out since training camp with an upper-body injury. He has been a full-participant at practice and should return sooner than later. He is eligible to be activated from long-term injured reserve at any time.
• Josh Archibald missed practice on Friday due to a maintenance day, but then didn't suit up for the game on Saturday. No further updates have been provided.
THE LINEUPS
Sullivan's lines and defense pairings:
Jake Guentzel - Sidney Crosby - Bryan Rust
Jason Zucker - Evgeni Malkin - Rickard Rakell
Brock McGinn - Ryan Poehling - Kasperi Kapanen
Drew O'Connor - Sam Poulin - Danton Heinen
Brian Dumoulin - Kris Letang
Marcus Pettersson - Jeff Petry
P.O Joseph - Jan Rutta
And for Dave Hakstol's Kraken:
Andre Burakovsky - Alex Wennberg - Oliver Bjorkstrand
Jaden Schwartz - Matty Beniers - Jordan Eberle
Yanni Gourde - Shane Wright - Brandon Tanev
Ryan Donato - Morgan Geekie - Daniel Sprong
Vince Dunn - Adam Larsson
Jamie Oleksiak - Justin Schultz
Carson Soucy - Will Borgen
THE SCHEDULE
The Penguins are right back to work for practice on Sunday, 12 p.m. at the UPMC Lemieux Sports Complex in Cranberry. Taylor will have your coverage for that, then the team has a scheduled day off on Monday.
THE CONTENT
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