A couple of weeks ago I wrote an article where I confessed to my envy of the Boston Bruins. Specifically, the way they’re constructed. Last night’s lopsided 6-2 Penguins defeat at the hands of the Bruins at PPG Paints Arena only amplified my jonesin’.

Accordingly, highlights for the home team were scarce. Big Justin Brazeau scored his first goal of the season against his former team at 9:04 of the first period on a one-timer from the right dot to stake us to a 1-0 lead, courtesy of a nice feed from Hendrix Lapierre.

Nick Robertson notched his tied-for-team-best seventh goal of the campaign on a deflection at 7:57 of the second period to close the gap to 3-2. (Yes, Martha, in the interim the Pens had yielded three goals.)

The Bruins tacked on three more goals, two in the second period and one in the third, to win going away.

PUCKPOURRI

Where to begin…

…guess I’ll start with our “top” defensive tandem. I don’t know what possessed coach Dan Muse to pair defensive weak sisters Sam Girard and Erik Karlsson, but the results were disastrous.

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It wasn’t all that long ago I was singing praises to Kyle Dubas.

Starting with his acquisition of Tommy Novak shortly before the 2025 trade deadline and on up through his addition of hulking Elmer Soderblom at last season’s deadline, I thought Dubas did some uniformly brilliant work. Arguably the best since Jim Rutherford put the finishing touches on our back-to-back Cup champions a decade earlier.

Here’s a quick review of his major transactions during that time frame:

• Acquired forward Tommy Novak and defenseman Luke Schenn from Nashville for forward Michael Bunting and a 2026 4th-round draft pick, March 5, 2025.
• Traded Schenn to Winnipeg for a 2026 2nd-round draft pick and a 2027 4th-round draft pick, March 7, 2025.
• Acquired forward Connor Dewar and defenseman Connor Timmins from Toronto for a 2025 5th-round pick, March 7, 2025.
• Acquired defenseman Connor Clifton and a 2025 2nd-round pick from Buffalo for defensemen Isaac Belliveau and Conor Timmons, June 28, 2025.

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Bad teams find a way to lose.

It’s a truism as old as sports itself.

Right now, as presently constructed, the Penguins are a bad hockey team. A jumble of mismatched and ill-fitting parts.

Indeed, they keep finding new and inventive ways to lose. Like yielding a game-tying goal, on clean a breakaway no less, just 71 seconds after they’d fought so hard to take a 2-1 lead. And failing to convert on a gift-wrapped 5-on-3 power play in the closing minutes, then taking a penalty of their own to hand the Golden Knights an opportunity to steal the two points. Which they promptly did on a power-play goal by Tomas Hertl with just 35 ticks left on the clock.

The sequence on the previously noted game-tying goal was particularly egregious, not to mention pure Penguin. Egor Chinakhov initiated the play by storming past Jeremy Lauzon along the wall and then winning a puck battle in the corner. A nice, hustling play.

That’s when things went awry. Straining to recover, Lauzon got a stick on Chinakhov’s attempted pass to Ben Kindel at the right dot.

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The Penguins continued to shuffle personnel in the wake of a fresh wave of ailments.

Leading goal-scorer Evgeni Malkin and defenseman Kaedan Korczak did not practice yesterday and are currently listed as day-to-day with lower-body injuries.

Andrei Kuzmenko (one assist in 10 games) was bumped up to Geno’s spot on the second line. Kris Letang skated next to Sam Girard on the second pairing. Playing his off (right) side, Ilya Solovyov slotted alongside struggling Declan Carlile (minus-9) on the third tandem.

In addition, Justin Brazeau was recalled from his conditioning assignment with the Baby Pens (an assist in two games). Last season’s 17-goal man replaced Kuzmenko on the third line.

In the funny-how-things-work department, I really thought Brazeau might be traded over the summer due to the influx of forwards. Something I would’ve been okay with at the time. Now I view the massive 6’7” 236-pound winger as a much-needed commodity. Especially since fellow big-and-taller Elmer Soderblom has been downgraded to week-to-week with an upper-body injury.

Taylor-Made for Promotion?

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The Penguins’ season of ineptitude continued to churn on unabated last night with a 5-4 loss to Montreal at the Bell Centre.

Our defense turned in another Keystone Kops-ish performance, Declan Carlile in particular. The newcomer was on the ice for four goals against and finished a minus-3 in a blunder-filled effort.

Making his first start in two weeks, rookie goalie Sergei Murashov was clearly fighting the puck and himself at times, the comedy of errors in front of him notwithstanding.

Murashov’s shakiness reached its nadir during two staccato bursts leading to four Canadiens goals. The initial rapid-fire, two-goal sequence occurred during a 24-second span of the first period, just 33 seconds after Erik Karlsson had staked us to an early 1-0 lead with a power-play goal.

The second pair came within 27 seconds of each other and early in the second period to put the Habs up 4-2.

As for the rest of the Pens? Most of ‘em kind of resembled a collection of…well…zombies on ice. Fitting enough, given the Halloween backdrop.

Indeed, we managed just 14 shots on goal through 40 minutes before finally rising from the grave in the third period.

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As our season lurches toward the one-sixth pole, the Penguins are firmly ensconced in the lower regions of the Metropolitan Division, saddled with an uninspiring record of 5-6-2. Good or bad for, depending on your perspective, 12 points out of a possible 26.

Worse, we’ve only won two games in regulation (one since opening night), which is tied with the decrepit Kings for the second-lowest total in the league. One less than the lowly Flyers.

In the wake of what I would term a very mixed bag of additions and subtractions by POHO/GM Kyle Dubas over the summer, including some true head scratchers, coach Dan Muse and his staff are scrambling (perhaps struggling is more appropriate) to come up with a winning lineup.

I’m not saying they have an easy task, especially with the overstock of forwards on hand. Which has the unwelcome effect of playing guys out of position (or not at all). However, some of their choices have left me baffled.

Playing Nick Robertson on the Fourth Line

The king of the doesn’t-make-sense deployments. Nick Robertson is young, fast, hustles like mad and possesses a scoring touch.

Continue reading Penguins Update: Things I Don’t Get at Pittsburgh Penguins - PenguinPoop Blog.