Blown leads one of many growing concerns for Penguins

It was a weekend to forget for the Pittsburgh Penguins, who played some good hockey for most of their two games against the San Jose Sharks and Utah Mammoth, but entered Monday morning still in shock. 

On Saturday, they surrendered a 5-1 lead in the third period to the San Jose Sharks before eventually losing 6-5 in overtime and on Sunday, fumbled a 3-0 lead entering the final frame before losing 4-3 in overtime to the Mammoth. 

The results put the Penguins fifth in the Eastern Conference’s Metropolitan Division and saw them dip to third in the Wild Card standings as well, albeit only one point behind the Boston Bruins with two games in hand. 

On Monday’s episode of Daily Faceoff Live, hosts Tyler Yaremchuk and Carter Hutton broke down the Penguins’ collapses and their playoff outlook. 

Yaremchuk: The Penguins played two games this weekend, and in those two third periods, they gave up eight goals, blowing two massive leads. They found a way to get a point out of either one of them, which you can look at as a little bit of a silver lining based on points percentage… but this is a Penguins team that has lost five in a row now.

Some reinforcements, I suppose, are coming. They added Brett Kulak is all set to make his debut tomorrow against the Edmonton Oilers, but with Edmonton on deck and you’ve lost five in a row. It’s not looking good for the Penguins. 

Hutton: It’s not looking good. Again, this is a situation where you have your two young goalies who have been playing very well, but you’ve kind of had that stop gap of a veteran guy in Tristan Jarry there. It changes the dynamic when you hand young guys the keys to the castle. 

Now Stuart Skinner is going to come in. It’s going to be a lot on his shoulders as well. I know it’s like the relief of getting out of Edmonton, but there’s still a lot of pressure when you come to a team that has built a dynasty, right? You have a lot of veterans there that want to win. So it’s going to be an interesting late run here…you have to find a way to try to sneak into that Wild Card spot for your veteran players. It’s going to be a big push, and hopefully these guys can help. That being said, I think they’re going to need a little bit more than that to try to hang around in that division.

You can catch the Penguins discussion and more on the latest episode of Daily Faceoff Live right here…