By Haley Williams
A lot has happened since the last Penguins update. They’ve won, they’ve lost, they’ve sent people away, and I’ve been on a veritable roller coaster of emotions.
Currently, the Penguins are in an ugly spot. They’ve got a record of 22-17-7, and they’re smack in the middle of the Metropolitan division. Going into their bye week for the All-Star break, Pittsburgh does not have a playoff spot sitting at 10th in the Eastern conference. We’re well over halfway into the season, and if they want to have any chance of coming back from their flop last year, some things have got to change.
First, this team has been wildly inconsistent. When they come out and really play well, it’s magical! At full strength, this team can be good. They are great at controlling the puck. They get a lot of shots on goal. They hustle, they score, and they are capable of great things. Unfortunately, we often just don’t get to see that. It’s embarrassing to watch them at times — we’ve got Erik Karlsson, Evgeni Malkin, Jake Guentzel, AND Sydney Crosby! We should be skating circles around most of the teams in the league! But they just keep going on these four- and five-game losing streaks, and they suck at getting their momentum back up once they’ve lost it. I honestly believe that if they could just entirely ignore what has happened in the past, and play one game at a time, we might see much more consistent results. Furthermore, Mike Sullivan keeps changing the lines around and not giving them a chance to really settle in. Give it time, my boy! You can’t throw three new players together and then get mad when they don’t produce in their first game! You have to let it marinate, let them really get to know each other. Try it out some time.
Unfortunately, some of the special teams still suck. They’ve got a power play percentage of just 13.1, which is genuinely abysmal, the second worst in the entire league. They just pass the puck around and around and around, like they’re trying to get it taken from them. So many power plays have ended with me yelling at the screen, begging anyone to shoot the puck. It’s absolutely painful to watch. During one stretch, they managed to go 37 power plays in a row without scoring. You’d think with that many opportunities, they’d luck into a goal at least once. Hey, at least their penalty kill is alright. At a PK percentage of 81.2, they’re sitting pretty at 11th in the league. I’ll take it.
Obviously, I have to address whatever’s going on with Malkin right now. He is currently on one of the worst stretches of his whole career, having gotten only nine goals in his last 36 games. Many have criticized Geno for being a highly emotional player, and they’re right. When he locks in, he’s great! He didn’t get the nickname Geno Machine-o for nothing. But recently, he’s been playing stupidly. He had a really great start to the season, with eight goals in the first 14 games, but he just keeps doing silly things. The obvious shining example is his own goal against the Coyotes on Monday. Kris Letang passed him the puck, and he deflected it straight into the Pens’ own empty net. So bad. So evil. You can tell from all of his recent interviews that Geno feels terrible about this slump he’s in, but feeling bad about it in interviews isn’t changing anything on the ice.
The Penguins have really got to pick up the pace if they don’t want a repeat of last year. I’ve heard rumors of some more line changes, as well as the moving of three players down to the AHL, so maybe we’ll see some sort of magical improvement after their break this week. For now, I won’t hold my breath, and I’ll just steel myself to root for another Florida team this playoff season. Maybe I need to invest in some Panthers merch.
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