CRANBERRY, Pa. -- The list of problems with this Penguins team on their seven-game losing streak is a lengthy one.
A struggling power play, penalty kill, defensive breakdowns, high-risk hockey, an inability to score goals, poor discipline, incomplete efforts, and sub-par goaltending have all been an issue at one point or another in this skid.
The Penguins' penalty kill was a bright spot in Saturday's 3-2 loss to the Kraken, an encouraging step forward for a group that has been among the worst in the league shorthanded this season.
The Penguins have struggled on the man advantage this season, too. They're operating at a 20% success rate, tying them with five other teams for 18th in the league. The power play has been even more of an issue over these last seven games, with the Penguins converting on just four of 26 opportunities in those games for a 15.4% success rate, a rate that ranks 26th in the league in that timeframe.
That's a lot of missed opportunities for a team that has been pretty good at drawing penalties this season. Over this losing streak the Penguins have drawn 3.71 power play opportunities per game, the seventh-most in the league. That's pretty consistent with their rate for the season as a whole of 3.75 per game, the eighth-most in the league.
With three days before the Penguins' next game against the Capitals in Washington in Wednesday, the Penguins took advantage of the extra practice time and focused heavily on the power play for Sunday's practice here at the Lemieux Complex.
"This day provided us an opportunity to have a practice like we did," Mike Sullivan said. "I felt like we got better at some things, it gave us an opportunity to get some repetitions in kind of trying to train our guys a little bit more just in the mindset of shooting the puck on the power play, things of that nature."
The power play work itself had a bit of a different look than we typically see. Usually, you'll see the top unit on the right side of the ice and the second unit on the left side of the ice, working simultaneously against different groups of penalty-killers. Today, all of the penalty-killers were on one end of the ice, and the other end of the ice just had two obstacles in front of the goaltender. Skills coach Ty Hennes would work with the players on that side of the ice and just get them into the habit of getting shots off, and then the groups would switch, with Todd Reirden drawing up plays for the group at the other end of the ice to run against a group of penalty-killers.
The personnel on the top unit remained the same, with Kris Letang, Sidney Crosby, Evgeni Malkin, Jake Guentzel and Bryan Rust. The second unit had a bit of a different look just due to Jeff Carter rejoining the group for his first full practice since being injured in Seattle. He joined a unit that included Jeff Petry, Jason Zucker, Danton Heinen and Rickard Rakell.
A lot needs to happen for the Penguins to get out of this skid they're currently in, and the power play showing signs of improvement has to be somewhere near the top of the list.
MORE FROM PRACTICE
• There were no actual line combinations or pairings in this one because of the intense special teams work. There were some drills done before the special teams work, but it wasn't anything five-on-five and there weren't any discernible combinations of note because players were rotating in and out.
• In addition to Carter (lower-body injury, day-to-day), Josh Archibald (undisclosed injury, missed Saturday's game vs. Seattle) and Teddy Blueger (upper-body injury sustained in training camp) were all full participants in practice.
• Ryan Poehling was the lone absence. Sullivan said afterward that he was sick.
• The coaching staff led a shootout drill to close practice. Blueger had the goal to win the drill, leading to the other group doing pushups.
• Practice always formally ends with Sullivan bringing everyone into a circle around him and giving some sort of talk, then everyone breaks up into smaller groups to do their own thing. Today, Crosby kept the circle together after Sullivan was finished and stepped in himself and appeared to be giving a talk of his own. It seemed to at least be pretty light in nature, with players cracking smiles or laughing at different points.
TAYLOR HAASE / DKPS
I went up to Crosby after practice to ask what that was about. A motivational speech to inspire the group? Not quite. They were just laying out the plan for the additional fun shootout work to do on their own at the end of practice.
"We were just having fun," Crosby told me. "It wasn't anything. We just had the shootout. We don't do them a lot, and we thought we'd have some fun at the end of practice. It's been a tough stretch for us, so hopefully a day off (Monday) and coming in we can refocus."
The shootout drill at the end was fun. Guys would do exaggerated celebrations and cheer for each other after goals. Malkin scored a goal toward the end and did a little fist-pump before going around and fist-bumping nearly half his teammates in celebration. P.O Joseph scored the last goal of the shootout and was mobbed by everyone else like he just scored a playoff overtime goal.
The mood has remained pretty upbeat throughout practices during this losing streak. That's not an indication of the Penguins not caring or taking things seriously. They just know that moping and getting down on themselves wouldn't do them any favors, and that keeping confidence and morale high is one of the keys to getting out of this funk.
"I think we all have high expectations of ourselves," Crosby said. "You know, there's a lot of expectations on us as a group. I think everybody feels that, everyone wants to have success. We have done some pretty good things, it just hasn't translated into wins. So we've got to find a way to keep that belief and that determination and trust that things will turn with that."
• Just about everyone stayed on the ice for extra work after practice, but the last guys on the ice were Crosby, Letang, Blueger and Sam Poulin.
• After practice the Penguins re-assigned Drew O'Connor to Wilkes-Barre/Scranton. If Blueger is going to come off long-term injured reserve for Wednesday's game, the Penguins needed to send two players down (O'Connor and likely Poulin) in order to clear enough cap space.