Tim Benz: As schedule eases, Penguins can't afford a slump with points on the table

The Pittsburgh Penguins have nothing to worry about. This is just a little slump with about one-third of the season left. They’ve been playing so well, for so long now, that they are bound to pull out of it.

I mean, good teams like this don’t fall in the tank for the rest of the year. Especially when they aren’t facing top-notch competition. That just doesn’t happen in pro sports.

Big time catch by Logan Thomas ? #WashingtonFootball

?: #WASvsPIT on FOX
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— NFL (@NFL) December 8, 2020

Vonn Bell rocked JuJu to force a fumble

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— ESPN (@espn) December 22, 2020

Ryan Finley is just having fun tonight!! The @bengals make it a 14-point lead against the Steelers

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THAT WAS QUICK.

: https://t.co/vcgHu2syur pic.twitter.com/Y3Xn6DhI0S

— Cleveland Browns (@Browns) January 11, 2021

Oh. Right.

Was that analogy a little too harsh? Let’s hope so. Because the Penguins can’t let something like that happen.

It feels familiar to how the Steelers’ fade of 2020 happened, though, doesn’t it? Mike Tomlin’s team was humming along at 11-0. Then had a warning signal it ignored against the Baltimore Ravens. Next thing you know the Steelers were losing to Washington, the Cincinnati Bengals and the Cleveland Browns twice in the span of two weeks.

The Penguins were fantastic in March, going 12-3-1. But here in early April, they’ve hit a wall, yielding 15 goals over the last two games. A 7-5 loss in Boston on Saturday and an 8-4 gong show in New York against the Rangers Tuesday night.

“We haven’t played with the same sense of purpose,” head coach Mike Sullivan said after the defeat Tuesday. “As a result, the types of chances that we are giving up are extremely high. And it’s hard to win games consistently when you give up the quality chances we have given up the last two games.”

So what has been the problem? An easy answer is goaltending. Tristan Jarry and Casey DeSmith have been remarkably consistent for weeks dating back to mid-February.

But Jarry’s start against the Rangers was his first since an injury knocked him out against the New York Islanders on March 29. He looked rusty allowing four goals in the first period before being pulled.

Then DeSmith yielded four more over the last 40 minutes of play. He was tagged for six goals against the Bruins on Saturday.

Yet Sullivan seemed reticent to pin the poor play on goaltending Tuesday night.

“It’s very difficult to assess the goalies when the play in front of them isn’t where it needs to be in order for us to have success,” Sullivan said.

Specifically, you can look at the penalty kill. The Rangers scored on all three power plays they had Tuesday. The Bruins netted a man-up goal, too.

We can blame injuries. Maybe the lack of forward depth is catching up to the Pens.

Jason Zucker is back. But Brandon Tanev, Teddy Blueger, Kasperi Kapanen and Evgeni Malkin were all still out versus the Rangers.

That may be manifesting on the P.K. units. And, as Sullivan said, despite nine goals the last two games, the team didn’t finish as many looks as it could’ve, especially at Madison Square Garden. After all, the Penguins outshot the Rangers 45-25.

However, the biggest problem appears to be that the Pens have slipped into some old bad habits of getting too loose in their structure. The tight, systematic hockey that had worked so well over the last 25 games or so has unraveled over the last 120 minutes.

“We have to get better as a group so that we avoid this circumstance moving forward,” Sullivan said. “The only way to do that is to try to learn through these experiences. And that’s what we are trying to do. These are hard ones because they sting. Because we have a proud group. We have had a lot of success this year. We have to find a way to get back to some of the details that are necessary to give us the best chance to win.”

They better do it in a hurry. The Penguins’ next nine games are all against teams currently out of the East Division’s top four in the playoff standings. After Thursday night’s second game against the fifth-place Rangers in Manhattan, Sullivan’s club has five games slated against the seventh-place New Jersey Devils, two against the eighth-place Buffalo Sabres and one against the sixth-place Philadelphia Flyers.

So there are valuable points to be had. The Penguins can’t afford to squander them by letting their play dip down to the level of competition.

After all, as the example provided above reminds us sometimes those “slumps” can last a lot longer than expected.

TribLive Penguins writer Seth Rorabaugh joins me for our weekly hockey chat. We break down the recent struggles of the Penguins, their upcoming schedule and some trade prospects before Monday’s deadline.