Joel Blomqvist was beating himself up a day after Alex Nedeljković was beating himself up a month after Tristan Jarry beat himself right off the NHL roster. 

And the most gifted among all of the Penguins' goaltenders might presently be in, of all places, the West Virginia panhandle.

So, uh ... wow, no.

No to all of this:

No to Blomqvist being beaten four times on 15 shots, all four upstairs and three times over the glove, while his teammates otherwise dominated the Rangers from front to finish despite falling, 5-3, today at PPG Paints Arena.

No to all eight goals the Capitals blew by Blomqvist and Nedeljković the previous day.

No to absolutely everything associated with Jarry for all eternity.

And as long as I'm at it, in an admittedly heinous case of hindsight being 20/20, no to ever having allowed Marc-Andre Fleury to leave for Las Vegas.

Yeah. Anyone else remember when the goaltending discussions and debates around here were focused on which of Fleury or Matt Murray to choose for the Eastern Conference final?

Been a minute, hasn't it?

Well, I won't claim to have some snap-the-finger solution to offer Kyle Dubas. This team's now given up 214 goals, second-most in the NHL, to go with a collective save percentage of .891, fourth-lowest in the league. That doesn't occur overnight and, for that matter, neither does it get fixed overnight. Particularly not when one of those goaltenders, Jarry, will make $5.375 million this season ... and the next ... and the next ... and the next, regardless of how much of that's spent in the minors.

Addressing that, in theory, should be Dubas' top priority related to this position, whether now or in the offseason. Because that's an albatross and a half, both in Pittsburgh and in Wilkes-Barre, where that aforementioned most gifted goaltender, Sergei Murashov, can't find time in the crease and, thus, gets relegated to routinely registering 42-save shutouts with Wheeling of the ECHL, as he did Saturday night against something called the Tulsa Oilers.

No, for real. He's still there:

I totally get why Murashov, who won't turn 21 until April 1 and who arrived from Russia a mere few months ago, wouldn't be hurried to the NHL. But to have him in Wheeling because there are allegedly too many goaltenders in Wilkes-Barre for the available starts ... I don't get that at all. Even if there were, even if the organization still took Jarry seriously, even if Blomqvist were still down there ... no smart management in sports ever holds back a premier prospect.

Not to strike too low a blow, but not even the Pirates do stuff like that.

Listen, take a healthy pause from all the shelling around here of late and dig deep into Murashov's career history carrying across both countries and multiple levels:

ELITE PROSPECTS

That's ... staggering. That's rare air, my friends. 

And that's also why, particularly since his growth spurt that came after the Penguins made him their fourth-round pick in the 2022 NHL Draft -- he grew a couple inches to his current 6-2, 180-pound frame -- hockey people inside and outside Pittsburgh have raved about his potential. Because he's put up the numbers and, within that, he's impressed in every other conceivable way, not least of which was flooring a few of the parent Penguins' premier players in the most recent training camp with his poise, his presence and, above all, his freakish athleticism.

But he's in Wheeling. And this after making six starts in Wilkes-Barre that saw a 6-0 record, a 1.99 goals-against average, a .934 save percentage, a shutout and ... well, what the hell else would anyone have wanted?

This needs to get straightened out. Not because Blomqvist and Nedeljković are struggling here, but because of common bleeping sense. This kid, by all accounts, is special, and he needs to be playing where he needs to be playing, all else notwithstanding.

The scene in Pittsburgh needs to get straightened out, too, of course.

I'm hardly about to bury Blomqvist over a bumpy start to his NHL career at age 22 -- 3-9, 3.72 goals-against, .886 save percentage -- and if I ever did, it sure wouldn't be after Mike Sullivan understandably went with the veteran Nedeljković in what all concerned had considered to be high-stakes games. Blomqvist's been way better than he was today, and he'll be way better again.

Three questions I had for him afterward:

Tough day?

"Yeah, tough day. I thought our team played really well. It's a tough loss."

Were the Rangers picking on your glove side?

"No, nothing that I was thinking about in the moment."

Do you consider the glove a strong suit?

"Every shot is different, so you need to play every situation different. There are no real same shots."

That's about as much as anyone will get from him, but I respect it. He looked nervous at times on the ice, but he didn't come across that way in this setting.

“I think we're capable of better," Sullivan would say of the weekend's goaltending. "I don't know if it's that we're coming off the break and need to get some game action, but I know that both Ned and Joel are capable of better. Joel's a young goaltender, he’s very athletic, and we're really excited about this guy. But he's a young goaltender. He's going through a learning process here. And so the challenge is on us as a coaching staff to help him. We'll do the same with Ned. We’ll keep working. I thought Ned, prior to the break, played extremely well for us, and there's no doubt Ned will continue to compete here to capture his game.”

He's right. Nedeljković will bounce back, too. He's a reliable NHL backup by any reasonable measure, and he'll bring value to the second year of his contract in 2025-26 at $2.5 million.

But man, it's not too soon to start learning more about everyone in this fold, not least of which is -- maybe by far -- the most promising among them.