Mark Madden: Badly broken Penguins don't deserve to make playoffs

The Pittsburgh Penguins are mired in a four-game losing streak.

On the season, they have had losing streaks of seven, six and four (twice). The ongoing skid is a good bet to be extended when the Penguins play at Colorado on Wednesday and Dallas on Thursday.

That’s 21 losses tied up in four losing streaks.

The Penguins have had many soul-crushing defeats, whether via a plethora of blown leads or at home to nailed-on draft lottery contenders like San Jose and Montreal. The Penguins lost all three games against the Canadiens, the Atlantic Division’s last-place team.

The Penguins have conceded goals in the last two minutes of a period 26 times. That seems impossible.

Monday’s 2-1 home loss to Ottawa put the Penguins third in the race for the two Eastern Conference wild-card spots.

Their core three of Sidney Crosby, Kris Letang and Evgeni Malkin are doing everything they can to drag the Penguins to a 17th straight playoff berth.

They won’t be able to.

The standings obviously determine, but these Penguins don’t deserve to make the postseason.

Take the laundry list of difficulties itemized above and add inconsistent but mostly bad goaltending, a rotten bottom six, cap problems, idiotic management that didn’t address conspicuous problems (like the goalie situation), the same mistakes being made repeatedly, a force-fed system that doesn’t fit the current group and an approach so soft it makes Charmin seem like sandpaper.

That’s an abbreviated list. These columns can’t go on forever. Suffice it to say the Penguins’ problems are great, and they are many.

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If you want to name names, that’s no brief inventory, either. Naming those who haven’t frustrated is less voluminous.

But most disappointing are players like Bryan Rust, heretofore reliable but now unproductive and prone to errors. Brian Dumoulin hasn’t been the same since his injuries and surgeries. Big trade-deadline get Mikael Granlund is 5-foot-10 going on 4-foot-11. Call-up Taylor Fedun replaced injured Jeff Petry on defense Monday, and a difference couldn’t be noticed. I don’t even know how to pronounce Fedun’s name.

A lot of guys who figured to stink, do. Blaming them is getting boring.

Same with goalie Tristan Jarry, who shouldn’t be retained when his contract expires after the season. Jarry played OK Monday but let in one goal too many. Jarry has started 12 times since his latest injury and been pulled four times.

No use pointing fingers at GM Ron Hextall and president of hockey ops Brian Burke. They’re not on the ice, and both get fired when the season ends. Some say owners Fenway Sports Group aren’t paying attention. But they are.

After 16 straight playoff berths, being a legit Stanley Cup contender from 2008-18 and winning championships in 2009, ’16 and ’17, the Penguins had to go splat sooner or later. If this isn’t sooner, it won’t be much later.

Nobody should be angry. It’s been a great run. But it appears to be over. Really, it’s been over since ’18.

When you haven’t won a playoff series since ’18, that streak of 16 consecutive playoff berths becomes more meaningless every year. (See Tomlin, Mike.)

Monday’s game was an example of excrement rolling downhill.

A bunch of borderline defensemen got pressed into service because of injury, and all played passably till Chad Ruhwedel’s late hooking penalty after he slipped. That led to Ottawa’s winning power-play goal.

When Rickard Rakell netted the Penguins’ only goal at 14:39 of the third period Monday, they had gone over 125 minutes without scoring. The Penguins had 49 shots Monday against a goalie making his first NHL start and scored just once.

The problems weren’t the usual ones.

But these Penguins find a way to lose.