CRANBERRY, Pa. -- Attempting to analyze the 2022-23 Penguins wasn't for the faint of heart.
They themselves struggled at times to put a finger on the reasons behind their giant swings in performance from one end of the spectrum to the other. But as Jason Zucker pointed out Saturday during locker cleanout day at the UPMC Lemieux Sports Complex, "We’ve got nobody to blame but ourselves. We didn’t find the consistency we needed."
The Penguins received completely healthy and productive seasons from Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin, but squandered them anyway, as they will not be participating in the Stanley Cup playoffs for the first time since the 2005-06 season.
"We had the chance to make the playoffs and we didn’t," Rickard Rakell said, "so it’s still an empty feeling right now."
With two games remaining, the Penguins controlled their own destiny. All they had to do to get into the postseason was beat the outwardly-tanking Blackhawks and Blue Jackets. They lost both games.
"I think just disappointed," Crosby said of how the team is feeling upon reflection. "We didn’t want to be in this position, and obviously we’ve had a few days after the Chicago loss, and then knowing before the Columbus game we weren’t gonna play in the playoffs, it’s disappointing."
Those final two games will be viewed as the reason they didn't make the playoffs, but the truth is that they had plenty of opportunities to avoid such a situation much earlier in the season. They weren't able to take care of business.
"We were so up and down that we couldn’t ever gain that traction that we wanted as a team," Marcus Pettersson said.
From week-to-week, game-to-game, and even period-to-period, the Penguins often looked like a completely different team. The thing that ailed them the most was their inability to clamp down and protect leads in the third period.
"It’s tough when you blow those leads and put yourself in tough spots like that," Jake Guentzel said. "We have to learn from that and move on."
The captain echoed Guentzel's sentiments about learning from the experience and moving on. He hopes this season's disappointment adds fuel to the fire moving forward.
"I just hope we learn from this," Crosby said. "That’s the biggest thing. Regardless of the situation, whether you win, lose in the first round, second round, whatever, you’ve gotta learn from it. I think that’s something that we’ll have a lot of time to dissect it and learn from it. Hopefully we’re a motivated group because of going through this."
But what, specifically, is to be learned?
"I think just in general, how difficult it is to make the playoffs," Crosby said. "You find out when you start going through specific games over the course of the year that you let slide, and you see how close we were, it’s tough. It’s a fine line. You understand that from having to compete to get there every year, but when you’re on the outside looking in, you have to look at all those situations, I think you realize even more. Just understanding the mistakes we made this year. The big ones, I think, were just not putting teams away. We had leads, that’s probably what makes it more frustrating, knowing we were in really good positions to win games and we didn’t close teams out, and it ends up being the difference between us making the playoffs and not."
"No one takes more responsibility for that than me, as a head coach," Mike Sullivan said. "I think we all have to own the circumstance that we're in right now. And nobody feels it more than I do."
MORE FROM CLEANOUT DAY
• On Friday, Kevin Acklin and Dave Beeston from Fenway Sports Group explicitly stated their desires for Crosby to finish his career in a Penguins uniform. Not that anyone expected any different, but the captain feels the same way.
"I’d love to," he said of remaining in Pittsburgh until retirement. "That’s been the case since day one. I feel really fortunate to have been drafted here and had great memories, got to play with two teammates, specifically, for a really long time, so I’d love that to be the case."
• Brian Dumoulin is set to become an unrestricted free agent this offseason. Taylor Haase has more on his future here.
• Zucker is set to become an unrestricted free agent this summer, as well. And like Dumoulin, he wants to return for next season.
"This is a place I want to be," he said. "I said that after last game and I’ll reiterate it: I love it here and I want to be back, but as of now it’s obviously out of my control."
He noted the city itself, as well as the fanbase and organization as some of the reasons he'd like to re-sign.
"It’s a great city," he said. "The fanbase is unreal. To me, it’s like the perfect-sized city. It’s a lot of fun to be here. This organization’s world class, too, and everything that the Penguins do is top-notch."
• I wrote about Tristan Jarry's injury-riddled season and his hopes of re-signing with the team after Thursday's finale in Columbus. He doubled-down on his desires Saturday.
"My goal is to stay here," he said. "I want to stay here. I've only been a Penguin and I only want to be a Penguin. That's my goal and that's how I'm going into the offseason."
Sullivan once again shared what he's said seemingly a dozen times this season: He believes Jarry is a "top-tier goalie" in the NHL.
• Guentzel scored 36 goals and had 73 points in 78 games this season. Still, he hoped to provide even more and is looking to recapture his 2021-22 performance heading into next season.
"Just OK," he said of his performance throughout the year. "Not great, not too bad, just definitely expected more. It’s part of the game. You’re not gonna be successful every year, you’re not gonna have good years every year. Just gotta make sure you’re working hard in the summers and doing everything you can to make sure you’re ready to be better next year."
He plans on playing in the IIHF World Championship in May.
• One player who won't be participating in the World Championship is Rakell, who mentioned that he's been a little banged up.
"If I wanted to go there, I wanted to feel like I could be at 100%, and that’s not the case," he said.
• P.O Joseph finally graduated to an NHL regular this season and provided quite the offensive boost further down the depth chart on the blue line. He's still hungry to improve.
"From the start of the year, I feel like it’s a lot of growth, a lot of learning," he said. "There’s a lot that I want to improve and a lot more that I want to bring to the table."
What might those items be?
"How I can be better in my zone, how I can improve defensively. My size, definitely, is gonna be something big this summer."
Joseph also shared that Kris Letang has been giving him some pointers on how to be "a little bit meaner sometimes," in order to become harder to play against.
• Ryan Poehling was a bright spot in the Penguins' disappointing bottom six this season, but he played in only 53 games due to a nagging upper-body injury. The good news is that he will not need surgery over the offseason.
"It was manageable toward the end of the year," he said of the injury. "As sad as I am for the season to end, I’m excited to get completely healthy."
Poehling hadn't really established himself as a legitimate NHLer prior to the start of the season, but now with the support of his coaches, he feels like he's on track to make another jump next season after proving he belongs.
"This year, for me, it was a growing year," he said. "It was the first year in my pro career where I felt the team believed in me, which felt great. I’m proud of what I accomplished, working through injuries and stuff and getting back. It’s a good stepping stone for where I want to get next year."
He also shared how awesome it was for him to be playing important games into the late stages of the season, something he had yet to experience at the professional level.
"I love it here," he said. "Obviously it’s not the way you wanted it to end, but this is my first time in professional hockey playing meaningful games at the end of the season. In Montreal, we were always out of it, I feel like, the last 20, 25 games. Even in the AHL when I had a year there, we had a good team, there was no playoffs. It’s fun playing meaningful games. I mean, that’s why you play, right? It’s exciting."
• After being one of the Penguins' most efficient goal scorers at 5-on-5 despite averaging the least ice-time per game on the team in 2021-22, Danton Heinen left a bit to be desired this season.
"I don’t think I had a lot of puck luck, but you can’t put it just on that," he said of scoring only eight goals in 65 games.
Even though he underwhelmed for chunks of time, the Penguins could do a lot worse than bringing him back on another one-year, $1 million contract. He's not sure what his future holds, but has interest in coming back for another season, if the opportunity presents itself.
"I really like it here."
• Nick Bonino played just three games with the Penguins after they re-acquired him at the trade deadline due to a lacerated kidney, which he said caused his urine to turn the color of red wine. He will become an unrestricted free agent this summer and, at least for now, it seems unlikely that he'll be back for next season. Regardless, he's glad he had the opportunity to experience Pittsburgh one more time.
"I came back after six years and it was so familiar," he said. "So many familiar faces everywhere, coaches and players, the arena. Four days after I got hurt, I was going into Giant Eagle to buy some soup and and a guy rolled his window down out of nowhere and is like, 'Get better, Bones,' and I think that's Pittsburgh. The fans love the team and that's what makes it even harder when we don't succeed. I love everything about Pittsburgh."
• Taylor also has more on the locker room reaction to the firings of Ron Hextall, Brian Burke and Chris Pryor.
• The players were still in the process of going through exit interviews when Sullivan spoke with the media Saturday, but at this time, he is unaware of anyone who will require surgery over the offseason.
• Sullivan had a rather passionate defense of the Penguins' power play that finished 14th in league by success rate and 10th by net success rate (including goals against). The case he made was that, even though he would've liked them to score more at times, the process and foundation was sound because they finished fourth in the league by total expected goals. It's worth noting, however, that they ranked ninth in the rate at which they generated expected goals on the man advantage.
"When you just assess the power play on an actual numbers standpoint, they're probably top-third in the league," he said. "Now, the expectations are high with that group, right? Would we have liked it to be better in certain circumstances? Sure we would. Is there areas for it to grow? Absolutely. We're always trying to find ways to help that group improve and get better. With a little bit more finishing on some of the looks, they actually could've climbed higher, but that's hockey. You can't always control whether the puck goes in the net or it doesn't. If they weren't getting the looks, then that's a different discussion."
• This season was a grind. Thanks to each and every one of you who read, interacted and shared our work. Looking forward to a fascinating and exciting offseason.
