The Penguins have hit rock bottom. What is the path forward?

A 7-1 blowout to the Dallas Stars .

A 3-2 overtime loss to the Detroit Red Wings .

A 6-2 defeat to the Columbus Blue Jackets .

The Pittsburgh Penguins may have salvaged a shootout win over the lowly San Jose Sharks on Saturday but it hasnt quieted concerns around the team.

The Penguins playoff window is closing quickly.

And this last week of play only emphasized that.

The Penguins 7-10-3 start only scratches the surface of how daunting their start to the season has been.

The team has a league-worst minus-25 goal differential, which helps capture just how dire it has gotten.

It starts with unstable goaltending.

Tristan Jarry lost the teams trust just three games into the season, which held him out of NHL action for almost a full month after a disastrous performance against the Buffalo Sabres .

One AHL stint later, Jarry is back up with the NHL club, though he stumbled in his return against the Blue Jackets on Friday night.

Now, in four appearances with the Penguins, he has allowed 4.3 goals above expected based on the shot quality he has faced.

The fact is Jarry isnt a reliable starter on a team with playoff hopes, and that was true before his start to the season.

Advertisement Unfortunately, the Penguins dont have enough support behind him to make up for that.

Alex Nedeljkovic only has three quality starts in 10 appearances.

Joel Blomqvist has had a few strong outings and has been one of the few bright spots at times, but he isnt the answer alone.

Between the three goalies, the team has allowed a collective 10.1 goals above expected, second-worst in the league behind only the Colorado Avalanche .

The goaltenders are a clear part of the problem, but this start doesnt fall purely on their shoulders.

The team has seriously struggled defensively.

The Penguins are a bottom-five team in expected goals against at five-on-five.

The team gives up a lot of slot shots against, especially off the cycle, and gets hemmed in its own zone.

The defenders arent blocking a lot of these shots or limiting dangerous passes.

Instead, theyre turning the puck over in the neutral zone and often getting caught flatfooted in the defensive end, which is further exposing an unstable group of goalies.

Its a theme up and down the lineup.

Kris Letang has struggled in his own zone and looks overwhelmed when playing against top competition.

And unlike seasons past, he isnt making up for it offensively.

Erik Karlsson s defensive game has been under a microscope for good reason over the last month.

Like Letang, he has been on the ice for a career-high rate of expected goals and directly contributed to costly goals against.

And there doesnt seem to be a match on his left to maximize his strengths, either.

Pairing him with Matt Grzelcyk was abysmal.

And Marcus Pettersson , who paired well with him last year, has also gotten off to a terrible start.

That pair is at least creating chances in their minutes, but the team is still giving up a lot.

Missing training camp with an injury likely set Karlsson back, leaving him with more rust to shake off when the season started.

But there havent been any signs of progress.

The Grzelcyk signing looks even worse after just over a month of play.

After his value trended down in Boston over the years, he has been over-leveraged in Pittsburgh in a top-four role that is way over his depths.

Last years big defensive signing, Ryan Graves , has made some improvements after a disappointing first season with the Penguins.

But he is still making back-breaking mistakes when this team needs him to be a reliable shutdown force.

The players look overwhelmed.

The coaches dont seem to have tactical answers.

And this team doesnt have the offensive chops to outweigh it.

There isnt enough dimension to their attack, with gaps in their rush-based offense.

And worst of all, theyre failing to convert on too many of the chances they do generate.

Advertisement The Penguins are as high-event of a team as possible in Sidney Crosby s minutes.

Theyre generating a ton of dangerous looks but bleeding almost as many back.

When he is on the bench, the team has just 23 five-on-five goals and theyve given up 41 back.

Its just another example of how fundamentally flawed the teams roster construction is.

At this point, there isnt a lot to be positive about in Pittsburgh.

The team put up maybe their best performance of the season on Nov.

8 against the red-hot Washington Capitals , only to stumble through their next four games.

The Stars decimated the Penguins so badly in the first 20 minutes that the next 40 minutes legitimately did not matter.

A slow start to the Red Wings proved costly on Wednesday, and the comeback fell short in overtime.

The Blue Jackets ended their six-game losing streak on Friday with a 6-2 win over Pittsburgh.

To put some perspective on how bad a loss that was, Columbus responded with a 5-1 loss to Montreal the next night.

To the Penguins credit, they managed to claim both points against the Sharks on Saturday night.

But that was only after blowing a 3-0 lead to one of the few teams behind them in the standings.

The team has already lost a league-high four games after holding a multi-goal lead and was lucky not to add to that record against San Jose.

Maybe its too early to call this rock bottom there are 62 games left, after all.

But its been an absolutely brutal start.

The Penguins current position isnt exactly unique.

Its pretty natural for teams to trend down after years of contending and few have the success Pittsburgh did at its height.

The team hoisted the Stanley Cup in 2009.

And after some changes around their core, they won back-to-back in 2016 and 2017.

But regardless of the outcome of that playoff window, most teams usually hit a wall because contending tends to weigh on a teams long-term trajectory.

Prospect pipelines and draft pools get depleted for right-now assets.

Commitments to aging stars can sink a team, too.

If a team doesnt proactively push against their playoff window closing, they become destined for a rebuild.

Thats how the cycle of contention generally works in the NHL.

GO DEEPER The NHL Contention Cycle: Where does each team stand now and in the future? Management could accept that fate and fade into the background.

The Stanley Cup era was special, but the shine is long gone.

The GM Ron Hextall era did a lot of damage to the Penguins long-term outlook.

And the start of Kyle Dubas tenure has had some serious missteps as well.

But that likely isnt how the franchise wants to end the Sidney Crosby era, especially after he signed a two-year extension worth $8.7 million a year that runs through the 2026-27 season.

That makes their path forward all the more complicated if a rebuild isnt a real option for another two years.

If thats the case, management has to find a way to stop the bleeding and move forward in the short term before thinking about a true teardown.

Advertisement The first step? Accepting the reality and committing to a new direction.

A team cant miss the playoffs in November, but it can tank their chances.

The Penguins odds of reaching the postseason have dropped by 30 percent since the preseason , down to just seven percent.

Pittsburgh has cratered while others, like the Capitals, Devils and Senators , have improved.

Waiting for elimination would be a gross mismanagement of time; the team has to get a jump start on the process as soon as possible.

There are just so many contract hurdles to navigate.

Jarrys deal is an anchor that has to be cleared for flexibility likely to a rebuilding team similar to when the Kings moved Cal Petersen to Philadelphia.

It just will probably cost a sweetener or another bad contract.

Buying him out may seem like the easy answer to opening cap space, but that could be the nail in the coffin of the Crosby era because it would leave the Penguins on the hook for $8 million in dead space in 2025-26 and $10.2 million in 2026-27 before gaining relief.

A trade isnt out of the question, but they would be selling low.

If he is moved before the season ends, it would likely take up their last retained salary slot (two will open this summer when Jeff Petry and Reilly Smith hit free agency).

As brutal as Karlssons start has been, the best solution may be maximizing the blue line around him.

For all his flaws defensively, Karlsson can still be an elite offensive creator which this team can use from the blue line, especially with holes up front.

Take his game against the Sabres: defensive lapses led to quality chances, which the goaltending couldnt stop.But he also made a direct impact in overtime, with a pass few defensemen can consistently make to set up the game-winner.

There is still good in Karlsson, but the team needs to do a lot of work to fix the bad, including finding a partner who can make up for his deficiencies (since Pettersson, who he clicked with last year, doesnt seem up to the task this year) and a way to ease his and Letangs deployment.

That should be where Graves comes in, but his game has fallen off a cliff since leaving New Jersey.

With a modified no-trade and four years left on that deal, the Penguins are in a serious bind there.

That could leave Petterson as the only real trade chip on defense because Grzelcyk likely doesnt have much value.

That would open up about $7 million on defense by the trade deadline this year and potentially give up-and-coming talent like Owen Pickering and Jack St.

Ivany a chance to develop at the NHL level and help management decide whether they can become regulars next season.

Advertisement There arent a ton of big trade assets up front, either.

Still, management should seek any avenues to recoup cap space and future assets.

Lars Eller was the first domino to fall , but he shouldnt be the last.

Players like Noel Acciari , Anthony Beauvillier and Blake Lizotte (when he is healthy) should all be on the block.

Moving Rickard Rakell shouldnt be off the table either no one outside of Crosby should be but he may be a tough sell because of the term left on his contract.

GO DEEPER What I'm hearing on the Penguins: More trades are coming Bringing back draft picks or up-and-coming players would help kickstart the Penguins process.

It could bolster a prospect pool that is far from inspiring .

Or it could give the team more trade assets (and open cap space) to use this summer to accelerate a turnaround if the idea is to try to reach the playoffs while their franchise icon is still playing.

The Penguins dont necessarily need to stockpile assets to take massive swings, like the Karlsson deal.

Management could use mid-tier assets to bring back reliable middle-six scorers or versatile depth defensemen.

Pittsburgh should be taking notes from the Blues retool in 2018, or even Washington in 2023 even if there arent as many valuable assets to move.

Then theres the coaching to consider.

Management has to decide whether Mike Sullivan can turn things around.

Sullivan isnt a bad coach he has one of the longest tenures in a league with a very high turnover rate for good reason.

He revitalized a team that needed a new voice back in 2015.

But sometimes, a team needs to bring in a new perspective with different ideas, and Pittsburgh may be approaching that point.

Retooling is a risky strategy that could ultimately burn the team and set them back further.

Pittsburgh could be too far gone at this point to get back to the playoff circle in the next two years.

But even if management doesnt want to tear the team down and focus on a new era of Penguins hockey, committing to a retool on the fly would be better than the status quo and may be the best chance of success again in the Crosby era.

The roster is flawed.

The contracts are flawed.

Even the coaching staff has become flawed at this point.

So the Penguins must embrace change and carve out a new path forward.

At this point, the only way forward requires taking a step back this year and preparing for the future.

Data via Evolving-Hockey , HockeyViz , HockeyStatCards , AllThreeZones and NaturalStatTrick .

This story relies on shot-based metrics; here is a primer on these numbers.

(Top photo of Penguins coach Mike Sullivan: Joe Sargent / NHLI via Getty Images).

This article has been shared from the original article on theathleticuk, here is the link to the original article.