The Pittsburgh Penguins have been playing an absolute gauntlet of a schedule over the better part of the past month, and it is not going to get any easier to start off the week.
Their past nine games have basically been a who’s who list of potential Stanley Cup contenders for this season, and they have not always handled it well. That was especially the case on Saturday night when they struggled to slow down the Montreal Canadiens offense (despite it being without top center Nick Suzuki), and on Thursday night when they turned a late 3-2 lead against the Utah Mammoth into a 4-3 overtime loss.
There are still some big problems defensively, and it is not just limited to the actual defensemen on the roster.
Nobody is playing well in the defensive zone, and it is leaving the goalies out on an island a little too often.
Making maters worse is the fact the goalies been a little inconsistent at times.
Arturs Silovs has been on a nice run, and I am not going to hold Thursday’s game against Utah against him even if the game-winning goal is probably one you want to see get stopped. He made enough big saves in that game to help get them to overtime. Rookie Sergei Murashov, meanwhile, is going through it a bit right now. He finally got another start on Saturday night in Montreal, and struggled for the third consecutive game.
That should have always been expected from the position this season, and especially from Murashov given his age, lack of NHL experience, and the unpredictable nature of young goalies and their performance.
You can not give up on him. You should not give up on him. The sample size is way too small, and there is still way too much hockey to play this season and in his career. You have to let him play through it a little bit.
The two big positive developments from this past week, even though the Penguins only managed to collect one out of four points in the standings:
1. Center Ben Kindel is back in the lineup and recorded two points in his return, including a goal (that looked like it should have been the game-winning goal in regulation against Utah.
2. Sidney Crosby and the top line were fantastic on Saturday night and played what is easily their best game of the season so far. Rickard Rakell is also starting to get on a roll. If the first line had played like that more often over the first part of the season the Penguins might have one or two more wins on the board.
They are going to need more of the second development this week, because the schedule remains tough.
The week begins on Tuesday night with a home against the Vegas Golden Knights.
The Penguins played Vegas on their recent west coast trip, and it did not go well for Murashov (or the Penguins in general) in the start.
If there is a positive for the Penguins on Tuesday, it is that Vegas has won just one of five games since then, and will also be playing the second half of a back-to-back, with travel, on the road. The Penguins, meanwhile, will have been rested for two days. The Penguins caught a similar schedule break a week ago against the Florida Panthers and took advantage of it with a 4-0 win. They could really use that here.
On Thursday, the Boston Bruins come into Pittsburgh and that is one of the more interesting teams in the league for me.
They made the playoffs a year ago, but there wasn’t anything overly impressive about their process. They had a couple of great, high-end players, but it still seemed to be more smoke-and-mirrors and goalie magic than anything else. They didn’t defend particularly well, their 5-on-5 play wasn’t great, and it all seemed to fall on the shoulders of Jeremy Swayman.
Some of those defensive shortcomings in front of Swayman are still there this season (and goaltending is still masking them), but the offense is a lot better, and a lot deeper than it was a year ago. Especially when it comes to generating chances. After finishing the 2025-26 season 27th in the NHL in 5-on-5 expected goal share, they are up to 12th so far this season. The addition of JJ Peterka, as well as the emergence of young players like Fraser Minten and James Hagens, has brought some much-needed offensive juice to a lineup that was overly dependent on David Pastrnak and Morgan Geekie. All of it has the Bruins at 10-4-1 entering the week.
It is going to be another extremely tough game.
The week continues on Saturday night when the Penguins open another three-game west coast trip, this time going through California. It starts on Saturday night against a Los Angeles Kings team that is just starting to find its way this season. After losing six consecutive games to open the season, the Kings enter the week having won four of their past seven games and are at least stacking some points for themselves.
They do not score a lot of goalies, Darcy Kuemper has struggled to open the season in net, and a lot of the 5-on-5 territorial advantages they have had in recent seasons has kind of disappeared.
It is a tough week, in terms of opponents, and the fact they are going out west again. At some point, though, the Penguins need to find ways to win more of these tougher games if they are going to be in the running for a playoff spot this season. It is also going to need to start happening soon. Even though there is still a lot of hockey to be played this season, there is a reason the NHL standings do not change much after the start of December. Points are hard to make up. Winning at least two of these games not only feels like a must, it also should be reasonable given the schedule advantage against Vegas on Tuesday night and the fact the Kings are simply not very good so far this season. Maybe the emergence of the first line on Saturday night is the start they needed to really get going.
