Losing has a way of turning every decision into a referendum, and that’s exactly where the Penguins are now. After Thursday’s 6-2 loss to the Boston Bruins, Pittsburgh has dropped four straight, sits at 0-3-1, and has slipped seven points behind a Metro Division playoff spot and eight back of a wild card berth.
The standings picture is bleak enough that even talking about the postseason feels like wishful thinking. The Penguins technically still have a 5% chance, with only Chicago, Vancouver and Philadelphia worse, but the reality is harsher than the math. Pittsburgh opened 3-6-1, has only gotten worse, and only the similarly self-destructing Philadelphia Flyers are keeping them out of last place in the Eastern Conference.
Coach Dan Muse tried a different look this week, essentially taking a swing by pairing his two best defensemen, Erik Karlsson and Sam Girard, in hopes of unlocking more versatility in the breakout and the attack. It didn’t blow up, but it didn’t solve anything either.
Karlsson had a rough night Thursday, and both defensemen ended up looking smaller together rather than stronger. The blue line as a whole is still dragging through the mud.
That backdrop has fueled the usual noise around accountability, and Muse addressed it head-on. On the one hand, coaches absolutely do have to hold players accountable. On the other, the old-school public takedown isn’t the answer people sometimes imagine it to be.
“I think we have to continue to review (the defensive zone struggles). We continue to practice it,” said Muse.
I mean, that’s what we’ve been doing, and that’s what I’m going to continue to do. That’s what we’re going to continue to do as a staff, and now we want to see more consistency with it.
The more important point is that Muse is not the central problem here. The Penguins are disjointed and undisciplined, yes, but there are bigger forces at work than a coach trying to steer a team that’s already taking on water.
Some lineup choices have looked curious, but each has had a purpose. The organization wanted Andrei Kuzmenko to get into the flow.
It wanted Declan Carlile and Kaedan Korczak to find their best game. The same goes for Tommy Novak, whom the organization values.
The players know what’s coming, too. They are not living in a bubble.
Trades are coming, the season is wobbling, and the group is fighting to stay emotionally engaged while the bigger picture keeps staring them in the face. Karlsson said it plainly on the first day of training camp.
“The team is in a … weird place,” he said to a couple of reporters, including PHN. Make no mistake, if Karlsson could vocalize it, others agreed.
That’s why the late goals and third-period mistakes matter. They don’t look like a team that expects to win every night. They look like a team trying to summon enough energy to finish the job, even though it’s only November.
Soon enough, Muse is going to be in the developmental role he was hired for.
Carlile has become a focal point in all of this. He’s taken heat for his play through the first 16 games, especially after being asked to fill Parker Wotherspoon’s spot in the lineup.
After a strong camp and preseason, the move looked promising. Then it unraveled.
Still, Muse made clear why Carlile keeps playing. The coach pointed to development, and he was blunt about the idea that every mistake should be treated as a fatal flaw.
“But if you want to put blame on him, I think it’s a misstep by you and by everybody else because there are also some other things that he’s doing really well, and he’s a guy who played 44, 40-something NHL games prior to this year,” Muse said. “So he’s come in here, is he taking on bigger responsibilities?
He is. Is that part of it?
Is that something that sometimes players need in order to grow and to get better? It is, and so there’s going to be times too where if you want guys to continue to grow.”
The same logic applies to Ville Koivunen. He’s 23 and has played in 61 games, and he’s had his own struggles this season.
His game rises and falls with confidence, and the sense from conversations last season and this season is that the NHL game can still feel big to him at times. That process is taking a little longer than anyone would like, but it’s still part of the process.
So yes, the Penguins are taking their lumps. And yes, some of the young players are getting the kind of runway fans used to demand and are now second-guessing.
Muse played the card that mattered most: development. In this version of the Penguins, that’s the truth worth sitting with.
In Other News...
Sidney Crosby Sounds Off As Penguins Problems Keep Getting Worse
The Penguins skid keeps stretching, and the latest setback came in a 6-2 loss to the Bruins, their fourth consecutive defeat. Sidney Crosby didnt sugarcoat the state of things afterward, pointing to the kind of inconsistency that has made Pittsburgh so hard to trust from night to night and stressing the need for cleaner puck control and better work in the details that decide shifts.
Assistant coach Rich Clune said Boston did a good job of disrupting Pittsburgh through the neutral zone, which only added to the frustration of a team trying to steady itself. For the Penguins, the concern now is less about one bad night than the pattern it reinforces, with the captains message underscoring how much sharper the group needs to be before the losses start piling up even faster. [Read more 🡒]
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Tommy Novak has surfaced as one name to watch, but nothing has been finalized and the bigger issue may be how difficult it is to line up a deal at all. Dubas is said to be factoring in player preferences along with trade value, which means the Penguins are not just shopping pieces off the roster, they are trying to find the rare transaction that works on every level. [Read more 🡒]
Penguins Slump Is Putting Crosby And The Power Play Under Pressure
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Crosbys own start has only sharpened the concern, since his production and shot volume have been far below his usual pace, and the defense has not offered much relief at even strength. None of Pittsburghs blue-line pairings has managed a positive goal differential in 5-on-5 play, leaving the Penguins with multiple areas to sort through at once as they try to stop the skid before it deepens. [Read more 🡒]