After Friday’s NHL games, the Penguins were two points clear in a playoff spot. They are 3-3-3 without injured captain Sidney Crosby, 1-1-2 without Crosby and the suspended Evgeni Malkin, who will sit one more game.
Splitting the points through the absences of their two star forwards seems the bare minimum, and the Penguins are clinging to that.
But there are still 17 games to play.
There’s still the shootout problem to fix.
Except it can’t be fixed.
The Penguins are historically bad in the shootout at 1-10. They can play 65 good minutes to get there, but their shoulders droop the minute the shootout arrives. The Penguins don’t believe they can win shootouts, and they’re right.
It’s a crisis of confidence.
So let the team’s most confident player shoot.
That’s Erik Karlsson.
Karlsson is having an excellent year, by far the best of his three as a Penguin. He fairly brims with self-belief, both in deed and word. He occasionally attempts to do too much, but great players often do. He’s been great five-on-five, on both special teams, and is their best and smartest player in three-on-three overtime.
Karlsson has the educated brashness of a future Hall-of-Famer.
When the shootout starts, the Penguins have a lot of players who shrink.
Karlsson wouldn’t shrink.
He hasn’t tried a shootout since the 2023-24 season, hasn’t converted since 2020-21, and is 6 for 26 in his career for a 23.1 success rate.
Karlsson isn’t exactly Philadelphia’s Trevor Zegras, who has netted 61.3% of his career shootouts (12 for 19).
But Karlsson would approach the process with confidence. As much as anything, shootouts are about handling pressure.
Let Karlsson shoot.
Don’t go same old, same old. That’s not working.
Use Karlsson, Egor Chinakhov and rookie Ben Kindel. Chinakov is 2 for 5 on shootouts since joining the Penguins. Kindel netted his only shootout attempt of the season in Tuesday’s 5-4 loss at Carolina.
The Penguins are in a good spot for a team projected to be among hockey’s worst this season.
But it’s hard to imagine that their horrible shootout record won’t wind up costing them dearly.
