The Pittsburgh Penguins are lacking hope

With the Pittsburgh Penguins off to an abysmal start this season going 7-12-4 through their first 23 games, it seems the Penguins as a whole are lacking hope.

The Athletic’s Rob Rossi joined Daily Faceoff Live to discuss the lack of hope surrounding the Penguins and why this team might be running out of gas.

Frank Seravalli: Looking for some perspective on, is this the most lifeless you’ve seen the Penguins over this time? 

Rob Rossi: I go with hopeless because I just feel like in the time that I’ve covered them, which, you know, dates back to like the season before Crosby arrived. So the pre-lockout season, there was always hope you could sell hope in Pittsburgh. At one point early on, that hope was here since Malkin’s coming, then Crosby, the draft lottery, they won that right. Then it was Jordan Staal. You got these three centers, and nobody had that. Then they won so quickly, right? You know, they had arguably the two best centers in the game for 10 years. You know, the expectation was so high that if they won a round or two, ownership was a little skittish at the time because like, oh, we should be doing more.

Rob Rossi: I mean, even up until the beginning of this decade, there was still this hope that was like, they’re not so old that they can’t get it right and make another run. That doesn’t exist anymore. They didn’t bring Kyle Dubas in to win right away, which is why his first summer is so puzzling.

Rob Rossi: To be honest, if you look at it objectively right now, he probably did more damage that first summer to make winning anytime soon unlikely. Because I don’t know how you get rid of Tristan Jarry or Ryan Graves or the Erik Karlsson deal. I don’t blame him as much for the Karlsson deal because that was a big swing. but you can’t miss on a big swing like that when you miss on those other things. And my point is there’s just, there isn’t a lot of hope right now.