OTTAWA -- Bryan Rust stared straight ahead from his locker stall, pretty much the only figure frozen in place as bodies were buzzing and bags were being flung all around him, this following these Penguins' 2-1 overtime loss to the Senators on this Tuesday night at Canadian Tire Centre.
Yeah, yet another loss. The seventh in eight games.
I asked Rust, respectfully, if I could borrow a minute of his time. He asked, no less respectfully, if he could first have a minute to himself. And I'd honor that, of course, sidling into the space next to his and staying stone silent as he unlaced his skates, peeled off the boots and protected his blades in finally packing up his own equipment bag.
He seemed ... on edge.
And that sense sure didn't subside once I'd eventually put forth the only real question I had for him: Does everyone in the Penguins' orbit still believe they're in a race to qualify for the Stanley Cup playoffs?
"If you don't believe we have a chance, I don't think you should be in this locker room," he'd respond, unflinchingly. "I think, deep down in here, we know it's a steep, steep hill to climb. And I'm sure everyone else has written us off. But in here, we believe. We know it's going to take a lot. I think we have what it takes, and we've just gotta dig down and find it."
Brief pause.
"Tonight hurts. It sucks. Especially for me."
He's referring to this:
THAT ONE WILL COUNT! π¨
β Sportsnet (@Sportsnet) March 13, 2024
Jake Sanderson rips home his 8th of the season to break the ice in Ottawa. pic.twitter.com/SNRfbbGywG
That's Jake Sanderson, bouncing up from the left point, then burying the puck behind Tristan Jarry for the game's at-long-last first goal, with 8:54 left in regulation. And, as Rust didn't wait for me to bring up, that was his assignment.
"The first goal they scored was entirely on me and it's f---ing unacceptable. It's a lazy turn by me, and we can't have f---ing plays like that," at which point he'd turn my way and add, "Sorry for swearing. But as a guy who's been here and consider myself a leader on this team, it's completely unacceptable."
From there, Rust and the Penguins, with Jarry pulled, would tie with 22.6 seconds left on Michael Bunting's first point in a Pittsburgh sweater:
Michael Bunting's first goal as a Penguin was a big one!!!!!@penguins | #LetsGoPens pic.twitter.com/D3YiZkEj5I
β SportsNet Pittsburgh (@SNPittsburgh) March 13, 2024
After which, a wild overtime wound up with this Drake Batherson dagger:
Drake Batherson takes down the Penguins in OT π₯ pic.twitter.com/RA64QOzJRy
β B/R Open Ice (@BR_OpenIce) March 13, 2024
It's bad. It's all bad.
But nothing badder than this: Amid the 1-6-1 collapse that began in late February, this team's scored a grand total of 11 goals. Just two in the past three games. And those two goals, the one here and another by Kris Letang in Boston, have required -- sit down for this -- 288 attempted shots!
Now, when nobody's scoring, it's generally safe to say everyone's to blame. Except that, in this case, there's some strange stuff playing out that involves both of the franchise's resident living legends.
In these eight games, Sidney Crosby's got no goals, two assists and a minus-12 rating.
Read that again. Slowly. It's bad.
Also in these games, Evgeni Malkin's got two goals, two assists and a minus-5 rating, but beyond that, and far worse than anything we're witnessing with Sid, he appears to be skating with a figurative piano strapped to his back.
That's worse.
I mean, what the hell is this? With either of them?
And for that matter, let's take a longer-rewound look at Batherson's overtime goal, while initially keeping an eye on Batherson, No. 19 in black, throughout:
THAT'S ALL, FOLKS π«‘
β NHL (@NHL) March 13, 2024
Drake Batherson buries it for the @Energizer overtime winner! pic.twitter.com/t0SbSkDSou
Uh-huh. Batherson begins the sequence well behind Sid way back in the Ottawa zone. And no matter how gassed anyone might be, even in the exceptionally taxing three-on-three format, there's no justification for Sid heading back to the bench there. The entire game's surging in the opposite direction. Every body's a must.
But wait, press play all over again and watch Sid's approach to the bench. He tries once to get Geno's attention for the pending line change and, clearly, doesn't get it. So on the next attempt, Sid gets demonstrative about it, gesturing with apparent anger. By the time Geno hops over the boards, it's a three-on-two, and that's that.
What could Sid have been thinking to go to the bench?
What could Geno have been watching other than the center he'd been tapped to replace on the fly?
I've got no idea. And not just because I was unable to catch up with either in the locker room afterward, but because, in all bluntness, I've got no idea what's going on with either of them.
Are they hurt to any significant degree?
If so, even a little, why wouldn't they be getting spelled from practices?
If I had to guess -- and that's all it'd be -- there's still some lingering pouting over the Jake Guentzel trade, all its various repercussions in the near future, and what it might mean for the longer-term future. All of the tenured veterans took it hard, but Sid's visibly taken it harder than anyone. And it can't be coincidence, in that context, that this collective collapse on the recent Western trip, as my understanding's that most people inside the Penguins knew Jake was a goner a week before it actually occurred.
Well, listen, I hated the Jake trade, too. Everything about it, including the impact on Sid.
My goodness, I've even empathized, to an extent, with the pouting.
But here's the problem with all of that, presuming it remains an issue, and it's found in the form of the Eastern Conference's wild-card standings:
NHL
Only two teams qualify as wild cards, so the Penguins are seven points behind the Islanders for the spot that counts. With 18 games to go, almost a quarter of the NHL's regular-season schedule. With the Islanders themselves lined up for an April 17 finale in Elmont, N.Y.
That's a playoff chase, whether it's realized or not, thanks to most of the teams in that pack also having fallen back in March.
I checked with Letang on this after the game, and he brought up New York's ongoing 6-1 surge:
"It's tight," he'd say of the pack. "The Islanders were out of it, and suddenly they're in it. If you get streaky right now, you give yourself a chance to get there."
I checked with the head coach, too.
"Well, I believe we're still in it," Mike Sullivan replied. "I think, until we're not in it, we're still in it. And that's how we have to look at it. We recognize that it's stacked against us, but we've got to control what we can and try to win the game right in front of us. That's the mindset. That's where we have to be each and every day."
At which point he'd proceed, unsolicited, to lament this particular outcome.
"I thought we went into the game with real good energy. Obviously, it's been a struggle to score goals lately. We had some looks, we didn't finish. Jarrs was terrific. He was terrific. He gave us an opportunity to win, especially in the overtime. But yeah, that's how we have to approach it moving forward."
And am I nuts here, or has it become completely buried back in Pittsburgh that making the playoffs should still matter?
Or that, at the very least, it should matter to all of the veterans in the fold, and not just Rust, Letang, Lars Eller, Marcus Pettersson and maybe a modest handful of others?
Never mind the living legends?
β’ Doug Drabek days till Miami.
β’ Thanks for reading.
β’ For thoughts on the Steelers' mega-news and more, I did still find time in the day to pander to the audiophiles:
