The Steelers and Penguins have followed very similar paths of late. Last year marked the first time that both Pittsburgh teams missed the playoffs in the same year since 2006.

But as Omar Khan ran his first full offseason as Steelers general manager and Kyle Dubas took over as president of Hockey Operations for the Penguins, optimism was abundant.

The Pens traded for Norris Trophy-winning defenseman Erik Karlsson and reshaped the bottom six. By all accounts, the Steelers nailed the draft and killed it in free agency, then followed that up with an impressive training camp and a perfect preseason.

As the hockey team was assembling for a return to training camp, the football team’s hype was off the charts in advance of the regular season beginning.

If only there wasn’t the small, pesky matter of having to actually play the regular season.

The Steelers were throttled by the San Francisco 49ers at home 30-7 in the opener. Then, in Week 2, the team needed a defensive miracle to escape what would’ve been the Cleveland Browns’ first regular season win in Pittsburgh in two decades and the team’s first “Monday Night Football” home loss since 1991.

For Mike Tomlin’s group, it hasn’t been a case of “reality setting in.” It’s been more a case of the hype train screeching to a sudden halt.

Since a large portion of the two fanbases overlap in Pittsburgh, the Steelers’ struggles to start the year should serve as a reminder to Penguins fans about how much of a leap there is between the theory of a reconfigured team reaching the mountaintop and the actual difficulty of trudging uphill.

And, boy, isn’t “trudging” the perfect way to describe the Steelers offense?

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Like the Steelers, part of the premise for the Penguins’ perceived improvement is that there are lots of new faces and allegedly more depth, particularly when it comes to the bottom-six forwards and even players who may shuttle in and out of the lineup (or back and forth from Wilkes-Barre) on a regular basis.

But, much like we are witnessing with the Steelers in the secondary, the front seven and the offensive line, meshing those pieces together can prove difficult at the start of the year.

During his opening press conference for Penguins training camp, coach Mike Sullivan seemed acutely aware of the challenges as he takes the theories of why this year’s team should be so much improved from 2022 and tries to actually make them manifest once the games start.

“There’s probably been more turnover on our team this year than any of the (previous seven) years that I’ve been here — from a player personnel standpoint and even from a hockey operations standpoint,” Sullivan said Thursday. “So it’s an exciting challenge. It’s a great opportunity for us. But one of the challenges that comes with that is getting to know one another. Trying to gain a more intimate knowledge and understanding of each player’s respective game so that we as a coaching staff can put these players in positions to be successful and play to their strengths.”

That’s not only true when it comes to multiple moving depth components up front but also some of the big-ticket talent the franchise has invested in the blueline via the signing of $27 million defenseman Ryan Graves and the trade for Karlsson.

“He has an awful lot of questions. He is one inquisitive guy,” Sullivan said of Karlsson. “Our coaching staff, we joke about it, but we are really appreciative of that because he’s engaged in the learning process. He’s intrigued by some of the tactics, or strategies, or even logistical things. … We really appreciate how engaged our leadership group is in trying to bring solutions to the table. These are the guys on the ice. They’re the ones that are working through the challenge. Feedback that we get from them, we learn every bit as much from them as they do from us.”

Self-awareness in coaching is a valuable trait. Depending on how these next three games go before the bye week, Tomlin and his staff may have to take a long, hard look at what they are doing if they want to avoid missing the playoffs again.

That’s a trend Sullivan wants to stop after just one year with his club.

“There’s a number of things we have to do better,” Sullivan said of himself and his assistants. “We certainly have to do a better job of coaching our players and putting them in positions to be successful. We’ve got to take ownership of that.

“Coaching our players to be better in certain situations and also holding our players accountable to certain things in certain situations in order to set ourselves up for success.”

Yeah. That accountability stuff better go for all the players. Especially Karlsson, Graves and even the core stars that the team has held onto late into their 30s. It can’t just be about limiting Drew O’Connor’s ice time if he makes a young player’s kind of mistake. Sullivan doesn’t have Kasperi Kapanen to bench or demote anymore as a constant, convenient example of discipline.

If Sidney Crosby or Evgeni Malkin screw up, they have to hear about it. If Kris Letang isn’t doing the right thing on the top power play, get him off it. If Karlsson takes an unnecessary offensive risk with a one-goal lead in the third period, don’t give him as much ice time the rest of the way.

It was that approach that quickly gave Sullivan some cache in the Pens locker room when he first arrived, and it’s something that appears to have waned in the years since after he and those longtime veteran players enjoyed so much early success together in 2016 and ‘17.

Unlike the Steelers this year, the Penguins got off to a good start last year, going 4-0-1 in their first five games. Then they lost seven in a row. Despite all the hype and hoopla heading into 2023-24, that kind of roller coaster effect is likely to happen again for the Pens this year.

Hopefully, the ride lasts into the postseason this time around.

But as their friends across the river in Black and Gold are proving, it’s rarely as easy as everyone tells you it’s going to be before the start of Game 1.

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