It's just absurd at this point.

The Penguins this afternoon allowed a goal on the Bruins' first shot in their 3-2 loss at PPG Paints Arena. It was the third consecutive game in which they allowed a goal on the first shot, the 13th time this season.

At the 62-game mark of the season, that gives them a lowly .790 save percentage on first shots. 

This trend has proven costly. They have a 3-9-1 record in games in which they've allowed the first goal, and only one of those three wins was in regulation. Of the 10 total losses in these games, three ended up being one-goal games, including this one. Six of those losses were by margins of four or more goals, indicating that when the Penguins go down early, they're likely to spiral.

Early on this season, it was almost exclusively a Tristan Jarry problem -- six of their first eight first-shot, first-goal games came with Jarry in net. Alex Nedeljkovic and Joel Blomqvist each allowed a first-shot goal in November. Nedeljkovic did it for a second time in January, and then Blomqvist for a second time at the start of February.

And then Nedeljkovic, having started the past three games, allowed a goal on the first shot in each.

It's a complicated problem, because there's not one clear causes. On Thursday, for example, the first shot allowed was a shot off the rush that deflected in off of one of Nedeljkovic's defenders. Hard to pin that on any one player.

Today's was a little more egregious. An ill-advised Matt Grzelcyk pinch left David Pastrnak open. Pastrnak then blew past Erik Karlsson, fake left, and tucked the puck past Nedeljkovic's other pad:

Nedeljkovic was asked about the trend after the game, and he sat and pondered for 10 full seconds before he was able to offer any kind of explanation.

"They all happen different ways," he said. "I think for a majority of them, it's just about starting on time for everybody. Some things are preventable. Some things, they just happen. And that's hockey, right? Shots are going to go in, get deflected, go off guys, bad bounces, pucks go over sticks, or whatever it is, and they end up with good looks."

Nedeljkovic said that ,if the Penguins are able to do better in starting on time, and playing with more emotion early, then you'll likely see these less often.

"For myself, too. It doesn't matter if it's a breakaway or whatever the shot or situation is," he said. "I've got to be ready for anything. That's my job. We need to just find a better way of starting on time, playing more detailed from the beginning of the game, and get back to just playing simple hockey and detailed. And honestly, just winning."

That all sounds well and good. And it'd be a great plan if this was, say, November. But it's Game 62. This has now happened 13 times. If it's a simple matter of coming into a game with a right mindset, then why is it still unsolved?

I asked Nedeljkovic that.

"I don't know," he replied after another lengthy pause. "It's tough. You don't realize how big of an impact the mental side of the game has. It's not like some crazy formula. It's just a matter of getting yourself ready to go, just being in that right mindset. It happens different ways for everybody. Everybody's got to do different things to get their minds in the right place. But it's sometimes as simple as an attitude. We've got to have an attitude and be just ready to go. The puck drops, flip the switch, and we've got to go."

It's not one line or defense pairing that tends to be on the ice for these goals against, either. Grzelcyk, who was on the ice for this one and contributed with a bad pinch, took responsibility.

"We give up a breakaway to one of the best goal-scorers over the last couple years," Grzelcyk said. "Nothing Ned can do on that. You never want to go down that early, but tonight we just made it way too easy, and there was nothing Ned could do there. So that's on us."

Again, saying the right things. Don't give a 60-goal-scorer a breakaway early.

Mike Sullivan offered a similar take.

"I think with smarter play, more purposeful play, we don't give up those types of opportunities," he said. "I think the common theme is we need more purposeful play, so we're harder to play against."

The NHL doesn't have clear-cut data on what the record for the most such goals allowed in a single season are. The data only goes back to the 2009-10 season, and since then, the most a team has allowed a goal on the first shot is 14 times. But with such a lengthy history before 2009, it's not unreasonable to assume that the real record is something higher.

Either way, the Penguins are one first-shot goal away from tying the present record. If they can do all those things they previously mentioned -- come into the game with the right mindset, don't make things too easy for opponents, and play more purposefully -- they won't take over that title. But 62 games deep, they might just not have it in them.