The Pittsburgh Penguins keep stacking the cards against themselves as the trade deadline nears.
With each loss that piles on to the Pittsburgh Penguins record, it feels like rock bottom. Yet, somehow, it gets lower and lower. They play two good periods of hockey and the final period sees them squander a lead and eventually give away two points that could’ve been had.
Instead of looking for a fix, general manager Ron Hextall continues to take the “glass half-full” approach in saying that he likes his team, they look good on paper, and that the results have been perplexing.
Head coach Mike Sullivan continues to roll the same lines over the boards in critical situations. Of course, he can only play with the hand he’s dealt but continuing to give Brock McGinn, Jeff Carter, and Kasperi Kapanen the ice time that he has is borderline insanity.
McGinn has not registered a singular point in 23 games. That’s almost impossible to do in the NHL, especially when you’re playing 13 minutes a night as a third liner. Carter looks like a shell of his former self. Kapanen has at least looked energetic and played the part of a third-liner despite his own shortcomings.
The Penguins cast of fourth liners, while fine for their job description, have provided next to no offense for the Penguins.
None of this goes without mentioning the Penguins’ top-six forwards who’ve been nothing short of outstanding.
Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin are both on the wrong side of 30, yet the Penguins’ best players night-in-and-night-out. Hearing that sentence is a blessing and a curse. On one hand, seeing them succeed like they’re both still in their prime is awesome. But, it’s also scary that no one else outside of the top-six is picking up the slack.
Rickard Rakell has been everything the team has hoped for and more. Jake Guentzel is doing his usual thing. Jason Zucker is the closest thing the Penguins have had to Patric Hornqvist since his departure and they must find a way to keep him around. Bryan Rust has been fine but the Penguins clearly would love to see more goals scored out of him.
And of course, there’s the goaltending mess.
Tristan Jarry is pretty good when healthy, but the “healthy” only comes around a few months out of the season. Casey DeSmith has been underwhelming in Jarry’s stead and Dustin Tokarski is best served as the starter for the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins.
All this leads to the point of what exactly are the Penguins going to do in regards to the trade deadline?
The Penguins are a combined 0-9-0 against the New Jersey Devils, New York Islanders Islanders, and Carolina Hurricanes this season. Losing divisional games like that can create a big gap in the standings. The Islanders, who the Penguins will see one more time this season in early March, are one of the teams the Penguins are currently battling in the standings for the wild card spots.
Hextall has sat back and watched everything unfold this season and hasn’t made a single, solitary move to try and fix the issues. To his advantage, he has Crosby, Malkin, Guentzel, and Kris Letang at a combined cap hit of $28 million per season. That averages $7 million a player for those four guys.
In this NHL economy.
And he still found a way to mangle the rest of the roster? That’s a joke.
Because of the minimal cap space, the Penguins can hardly be in play for the big fish. Adding one or two small pieces won’t fix the Penguins’ overall problem and surely is going to cost more than it’s worth to make those moves.
Conversely, if the Penguins decided to sell guys off, even if it’s contracts like Kapanen, Rust, or Brian Dumoulin, they run the risk of making their stars mad. Those guys signed on with the intention of competing for a playoff spot every year until their contract expires. They have no interest in being a part of a team that has eyes on the future.
The Penguins, specifically Hextall, are very much in no man’s land right now. They aren’t going to do anything noteworthy as they’re currently constructed and the players likely won’t be agreeable to punting on what’s left of this season and putting their focus on next season’s roster.
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