Playoff streak be damned, it’s time for the Pittsburgh Penguins to let go

Matt Larkin (MLarkinHockey)

Playoff streak be damned, it’s time for the Pittsburgh Penguins to let go

Credit: Evgeni Malkin, Sidney Crosby and Jake Guentzel (© Charles LeClaire-USA TODAY Sports)

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“All good things must come to an end.”

“Too much of a good thing.”

“Law of diminishing returns.”

There are countless expressions in the English language suggesting that overexposure to something positive can slowly exhaust it into a negative.

The Detroit Red Wings from 1990-91 to 2015-16 were a prime example of that. They made the playoffs 25 times in a row, tied for the third-longest streak in NHL history. But what was long a source of franchise pride became a labored obligation to which Sisyphus could relate, and it set the team’s competitiveness back for seven years and counting.

The 1990s Red Wings were a powerhouse, capturing a pair of Presidents’ Trophies, setting an NHL single-season record with 62 wins in 1995-96 and finally breaking through to win the Stanley Cup in 1996-97 and 1997-98. The early 2000s yielded three more Presidents’ Trophies, with Stanley Cups in 2001-02 and 2007-08, and cemented a generation of Hall of Fame talent. If you named Detroit as the model NHL organization for the 1990s and 2000s, you wouldn’t get much of a fight. But when the 2010s arrived, much of their legends had aged out of the game, from Steve Yzerman to Sergei Fedorov. Nicklas Lidstrom called it quits after 2011-12. Pavel Datsyuk and Henrik Zetterberg could only carry the remaining core for so long. Years of success, and never picking early in the first round, gradually weakened Detroit’s farm system, no matter how good Hakan Andersson was at scouting hidden gems late in the draft. The Wings started to sag in the standings. From 2011-12 through 2015-16, they never finished higher than third in their own division. With not enough help coming from within, GM Ken Holland handed out one regrettable contract after another to middling veterans, from paying to bring in the likes of Frans Nielsen to paying to retain the likes of Justin Abdelkader.

While the Red Wings brass didn’t necessarily literalize the concept, it was all in the name of the streak, wasn’t it? When you make the playoffs 25 years in a row, especially with league-wide parity that permits low seeds to make shockingly deep runs year after year, it’s tough to let go of that prestigious standard – not to mention the extra spring gate revenues. When you always feel like your group has a shot, you can’t help but limp forward in mediocrity, good enough to remain competitive but never bad enough to assemble high-ceiling assets to help you in the long term.

When the Wings wheezed to the end of their 25-year streak in 2016-17, I argued at the time that no team was further away from the Stanley Cup. The only thing worse than being a terrible NHL club is to be a mediocre one that won’t admit it’s mediocre, because it dooms you to keeping the team on life support and finishing in the mushy middle. Even once the Wings started missing the playoffs, they had enough veterans on immovable contracts to stick around and keep them from being too bad. They didn’t even secure a top-five draft slot until 2020, when they snagged Lucas Raymond. It marked Detroit’s first top-five pick in 30 years.

The Wings of the past decade serve as a cautionary tale. They couldn’t let go of the idea that they were contenders and, by choosing quick solutions, they hurt themselves in the long run. They’re about to miss the playoffs a seventh consecutive year, and they’re hardly a lock to avoid an eighth straight miss next season. They traded one streak for another.

So what am I getting at, picking on the Wings?

I want to highlight the team I believe to be the furthest in the NHL from a Stanley Cup today. Have a look at the active playoff streak leaderboard. The Pittsburgh Penguins are hanging by a thread, clinging to the hope of crawling into the postseason as an Eastern Conference Wildcard seed and extending their streak to 17 years. They kept the band together last summer, re-signing thirtysomething franchise legends Evgeni Malkin and Kris Letang to keep the championship dream going with captain Sidney Crosby still playing elite hockey.

But look at the circumstances surrounding this team and you’ll find alarming similarities to the Wings as the end of their streak. These Pens enjoyed a decade and a half of incredible success, punctuated by three Stanley Cups, including back to back in 2016 and 2017, but they haven’t won a playoff series in five years, bowing out in Round 1 every season since 2018, when they lost in Round 2. Because of their continued success, they haven’t owned a top-five draft pick in 17 years. They are perceived to have one of the very worst prospect crops in the NHL. Their “upgrades” at the 2023 Trade Deadline were Mikael Granlund and the since-injured Nick Bonino and Dmitry Kulikov.

Pittsburgh still has a respectable core of Crosby, Malkin, Jake Guentzel, Bryan Rust, Rickard Rakell and Kris Letang to build around. But other veterans signed through at least next season include Granlund at $5 million through 2024-25; Jeff Carter at $3.125 million through 2023-24; Jeff Petry at $6.25 million through 2024-25; and Jan Rutta at $2.75 million 2024-25.

“And? What’s the problem? That’s not bad,” you might say. Exactly. It’s not bad. It’s also not particularly good.

The Pens’ points percentage this season sits at .563, their lowest since 2005-06, Crosby’s rookie year. This is, with an average age of 30.27, the NHL’s oldest team. Does it thus stand to reason that Pittsburgh will improve next season? Odds are, .563 might slip to something like .525, with mediocrity giving way to more mediocrity. The Pens actually do have some cap space freeing up this offseason with Jason Zucker’s $5.5 million and Brian Dumoulin’s $4.1 million coming off the books. And therein lies the trap. Say Pittsburgh manages to squeak into a playoff spot this season. Will GM Ron Hextall decide to wield that cap space to bring in some new, expensive second-tier veterans, just as the Red Wings did?

It’s difficult to imagine this team doing anything but compete under Crosby, and I can’t fault anyone who believes there’s an obligation to Sid to keep giving him a reasonable team to work with. But think of those Red Wings. Think of how long it has taken them, and continues to take them, to become a respectable franchise again, Yzerplan or not. The playoff streak became a curse and threatens to do the same to Pittsburgh.

Whether the Pens extend the streak to 17 years or not…it’s clear this group doesn’t have what it takes to make a deep run or, evidently, even win a series. Learn from the Red Wings, Pittsburgh. Know when to let go.

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Playoff streak be damned, it’s time for the Pittsburgh Penguins to let go

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