Feel free to panic.

The six-game losing streak with three straight losses to bad teams on the road was a good reason for Penguins to be annoyed, but it could be written off as an ordinary, if not expected, bad spell in a long season.

Losing to the Capitals at home would not have been reason to panic if not for the fact the Penguins looked disinterested in what was their biggest game of the year.

It would’ve been nice if Matt Murray had come up with a big save on one of the 30 or 40 odd-man rushes the Capitals seemed to have Saturday, but he couldn’t be blamed for that loss.

Tristan Jarry had a chance to retake the No. 1 job away from Murray on Sunday, but his teammates gave him no chance in a 6-2 loss to the Carolina Hurricanes.

Now that goalie rotation idea doesn’t look so good.

How does a team with this much talent go 1 for 7 on the power play?

The Penguins stink right now, and the healthier they get, the more they stink. There’s no trading deadline to save them, and there aren’t any major tweaks for the coaching staff to make.

Analyze it all you want. It’s not complicated. It’s desperation time. Sometimes that’s all it takes. Plenty of time left but no easy games on the schedule. Including the one Tuesday night in New Jersey. The Devils have been better than the Penguins for the last five weeks. That says all you need to know.

• What’s next, paying kids to come to Pirates games?

In case you hadn’t heard, the Pirates are offering free tickets to kids 14 and under for home games in April and May.

Apparently, Buc Nights, when some tickets and concession items were available for a dollar, are no longer enough of an incentive.

You remember Buc Night last season, when hot dogs were a dollar and the concession stands ran out of buns. That was the second game of the season, when the Pirates drew a crowd of over 26,000 for Not Opening Day.

School nights always have been a challenge for baseball teams, and it makes sense to offer parents an incentive to bring their kids to a game. However, when teams make every game for two months free to kids 14 and under, chances are pretty good they had a disastrous advanced sales winter.

Of course, to get a free kid’s ticket, an adult has to buy a $20 general admission ticket in a special section.

The Pirates drew 1,491,439 fans last season, which was actually about 25,000 more than they drew the year before.

Does anybody think attendance will go up this season?

Five years ago they drew 2,498,596. That’s a 60% drop. How low can they go? By all accounts, the Pirates are back in rebuilding mode, which means fans are expected to be thrilled if they don’t lose 90 games.

Remember, it’s not about more people buying tickets as much as it it about the same people buying the same amount of or more tickets.

Would you have liked the job of calling Pirates full or partial season-ticket holders this winter to ask them for renewals?

Do you think that, if those calls had gone well, they’d be letting kids in free?

Have you noticed a buzz about the Pirates because of what’s been happening in Bradenton? Entering Sunday’s games, they had the worst record in the Grapefruit and Cactus leagues. They had lost 12 out of 15.

Yeah, Spring training records are meaningless, but 3-12 is pretty pathetic. The Pirates are getting an early start on being a source of misery for Western Pennsylvania, something they’ve done for 25 of the last 28 years.

How long before we reach the point that people wouldn’t go to a Pirates game if you paid them?

There are lots of people in Western Pa. who already are there and the number of empty FREE seats at games this year will be one more embarrassment for what has become a major league team in name only.

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