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11/25/2024 12:06 PM

This week, American families will gather around the table for Thanksgiving, guided by the peace-preserving holiday principle that there are some things it's just best not to talk about.

Whether it's worldly events like elections or old classics like, "When are you going to bring someone home with you for the holidays?" a lot of stuff is best left unsaid.

Occasionally, though, you've got to say the quiet part loud — no matter the consequences — in the name of being open and honest. And if you apply that logic to hockey, it's time to talk turkey about the Pittsburgh Penguins.

Things were looking grim in Steeltown even before the weekend, when the Pens lost two home games by a combined score of 10-1. Pittsburgh has now lost a league-high nine games by three-plus goals and its minus-34 goal differential is the worst in the league by seven goals.

The only teams with a worse points percentage than the Penguins' .391 mark are the San Jose Sharks (.370) and Chicago Blackhawks (.381).

All of this is fact devoid of speculation. The subjective lens we view all things Penguins through, however, is what does this mean for Sidney Crosby?

No. 87 is clearly still in the fight, literally dropping the gloves with Winnipeg's Kyle Connor on Friday, then scoring his 600^th career goal — the only one Pittsburgh got — the next night while his team got drubbed 6-1 by Utah. It was basically just two months ago Crosby inked a two-year extension to stay in Pittsburgh through 2026-27. If his view on that plan never wavers, fantastic. More than anybody in the league, he's entitled chart his own course.

But, for the sake of everybody involved, it's time to talk about how much losing the Penguins could do between now and then. This isn't just one bad quarter of a season; this is the bottom falling out on a team that's been trending the wrong way for a while.

Pittsburgh has one playoff round victory since hoisting the 2017 Cup and it came the very next spring in 2018. The Penguins missed the 2023 post-season basically because they spit the bit in their final two games of the year, including a brutal 5-2 home loss in Game 81 to a Blackhawks team that wound up with 59 points in the season that led to drafting Connor Bedard. Last year, the Penguins were selling by the trade deadline because the playoffs were such a longshot.

Now, the Pens have already jettisoned useful centre Lars Eller with the understanding more capable pieces like defenceman Marcus Pettersson will soon follow him out the door. And let's be clear: there's certainly no shame in a club that's hung three banners in 15 years needing a reset.

We've mentioned the Hawks and Sharks, the last two teams to draft first overall, already, so let's have an honest conversation about that path. Would winning the draft lottery — and, hey, Pittsburgh's got a charmed history selecting No. 1 — completely shift this conversation? One bad year, then back on your feet?

First off, odd as it sounds to say, finishing 32^nd is still quite difficult to do when you're "competing" with other teams that entered the season with that explicit goal, whether it was declared or not. If you manage to finish last, there's still about a 75 per cent chance you will not draft first overall, thanks to the lottery odds.

For the sake of argument, though, give Pittsburgh, which just does not have much of a farm system just now, top prospect James Hagens. He's a fantastic centre often compared to fellow Americans Jack Hughes and Logan Cooley. The former played at a 28-point pace during his first year in the league and the latter had a very respectable 44 points as a rookie last season. It took Hughes — who will probably be a league MVP at some point — three years to fully find his NHL footing and Cooley — after a big four-point weekend — is on pace for about 15 goals and 60 points this year as a 20-year-old sophomore. This is not meant to disparage them as players. It's a reality check on how hard it is for even the highest picked players in the draft to have an immediate impact in the NHL.

Chances are, come next October Hagens will be an 18-year-old slowly figuring out how to navigate the best league in the world. Does that sound like the short-term panacea for what ails the Pens?

All we're trying to say is, if we're going to talk about 37-year-old Crosby wanting to be part of the solution, it's time to acknowledge something I don't think many people believed even as recently as when he inked a new deal in September: this could be a years-long fix.

Given that, let's also remember conversations, whether loud or quiet, tend to be ongoing. And some of the most important ones certainly require checking in from time to time.

Weekend Takeaways
• Speaking of first-overall picks and how unmerciful the NHL can be, make it an even dozen games and counting without a goal for Connor Bedard. It's hard to fathom how tough this must be on a player who surely has never gone this long without scoring … since he started playing hockey? On Saturday, the Hawks lost to the Flyers when Matvei Michkov, who, in a sense, co-headlined the 2023 draft with Bedard, scored in overtime to record his rookie-best seventh goal of the campaign.

• The Detroit Red Wings lost 2-1 on Saturday to a Bruins team that just made a coaching change. And, of course, the Blues cleared the way to hire the guy Boston just fired (Jim Montgomery) by letting go of their coach, Drew Bannister, on Sunday morning. Now you look at the Wings and worry about Derek Lalonde and whether his 8-10-2 team can't find some more offence, fast. Detroit has scored more than two goals in regulation on just three occasions in its past 12 outings and ranks 27^th overall in goals per game with 2.45.

The Week Ahead
• It's a tasty slate on Monday, headlined by the two best teams in the NHL so far — the Wild and Jets — going head-to-head in Minnesota. Jim Montgomery makes his debut as Blues coach in Madison Square Gardens versus the Rangers; the Avs and Bolts clash in a rematch of the 2022 Cup final in Tampa; the Capitals visit the Panthers in an Eastern Conference heavyweight tilt, and the Stars visit Carolina.

• Former Bruin Jake DeBrusk, coming off a two-goal showing on Saturday, visits Boston for the first time on Tuesday since inking a big UFA deal with the Canucks in the summer. Of course, the Bruins signed two free agents — Elias Lindholm and Nikita Zadorov — who were traded to the Canucks in-season last year by the Calgary Flames.

• It's all or nothing for hockey this week, with 30 squads skating Wednesday night ahead of zero games on Thanksgiving Thursday while the NFL takes the centre sporting stage. Then, on Black Friday, there's afternoon action all over the United States and a huge nighttime tilt in Vegas with the Jets in town.

• The Bruins, who have clawed out 1-0 and 2-1 wins in the two games since Joe Sacco took over behind the bench, will mark the 100^th anniversary of their first-ever game against the Montreal Maroons by hosting the Montreal Canadiens at 1 p.m. on Sunday. The game will headline a weekend full of activities in Boston to put a bow on the club's centennial celebration.

Red and White Power Rankings
1. Winnipeg Jets (17-4-0) As good as Winnipeg has been this year, the Jets are only four points up on the Wild for the Central Division lead and the latter holds a game in hand.

2. Toronto Maple Leafs (13-6-2) Just incredible work by the Leafs, who beat Utah 3-2 Sunday night, to go 7-1-0 without Auston Matthews in the lineup. Let's see if they can keep it going when, all things being equal, the captain re-joins the club at some point this week. 

3. Calgary Flames (12-6-3) After Saturday's shootout win over the Wild, the Flames are 3-1 in the one-on-one contest and are tied with San Jose and Philadelphia for the most shootout showdowns this season with four. After winning four straight home games, Calgary sets out for a four-game roadie and will be the visitor in six of its next eight contests.

4. Edmonton Oilers (11-9-2) With his second two-goal game in three outings on Saturday, Connor McDavid is up to 11 goals this season and — after netting 32 goals last year — suddenly looks like a 50-goal threat again.

5. Vancouver Canucks (10-6-3) After Saturday's win in Ottawa, the Canucks have a league-best .875 points percentage on the road. That victory kicked off a six-game road swing. Can they keep the good times rolling?

6. Ottawa Senators (8-11-1) Following five straight L's, it's already now-or-never time for the Sens to course correct. If not, it's another winter in the ditch.

7. Montreal Canadiens (7-11-2) After getting spanked 6-2 by Vegas on Saturday, Montreal has eight losses by at least three goals this season. Only Pittsburgh (nine) has more.