The Penguins Are Embarrassing

And what did the Penguins do? Did they come out guns blazing? Trying to stifle a Chicago team who has nothing to play for and are trying to win the Connor Bedard sweepstakes.

No. They, in fact, did not do that, they spent the first forty minutes of the game aimlessly skating around and daydreaming about upsetting Boston and making it to the Stanley Cup riding a rainbow.

Where was the urgency? It looked like outside of Crosby and the core, nobody cared? I’m not going to give too in-depth of an overview as I know fellow PenguinPoop writer Rick Buker will cover the entirety of the game I’m sure.

But starting us off the game was scoreless for the first twenty minutes of the game, and that right there is a bad sign…..

It should have been three to four nothing right off the bat, and I mean that. This top six forward group should have been merciless those first twenty, giving them no breathing room and making no doubt that they would win, trying to give Chicago even less reason to play.

Don’t get it twisted, if you don’t score in the first, and the Hawks believe they have a shot at being a spoiler, they absolutely will play spoiler. So in fact it was the Blackhawks last night who were merciless and not the team that needed to be.

So a powerplay for Chicago in the second gets killed off, and shortly after Connor Murphy opens the scoring for the Hawks at 8:04 into the period. Bad start for the Penguins, who should have already been up as they wasted two powerplays, two sad, pathetic, and lackluster effort powerplays.

Now we head to the third with a Chicago team now ahead one nothing, and I’m sure dedicated to playing spoiler, and the Penguins are now desperate and frustrated and ready to play urgently. But urgency was needed at puck drop and it wasn’t there.

The third starts out great with an early powerplay, and a little bit more desperation, and then the Penguins proceed to almost give up a short-handed and then waste yet another powerplay opportunity.

How many gifts do the Penguins need to win? The Hawks are not going to give you a win, you earn every inch of ice. You have to fight for a win in this league, even against the teams at the bottom of the standings.

Then the Penguins get yet another powerplay, they finally score on this one, big boy Evgeni Malkin comes up with a nice tip-in and a playoff level celebration to try and spark the team. But all the sparking that this core tried to do couldn’t get this bloated pig corpse of a team to get going.

At 10:22 of the period, just 5 minutes later in complete Penguins fashion the Hawks score again. A goal by a nobody player, Buddy Robinson who’s a 31-year-old AHL lifer (no offense to Buddy) off one of the most disastrous, sloppy, disorganized, and out of position efforts from the Penguins who themselves end up looking like AHL-ers in embarrassing fashion.

Right after that the Hawks get another at 10:48, yes only 26 seconds later, in a must win game for the Penguins, they just completely collapse. It’s another embarrassing play, Penguins fumbling around miss a pass up the boards to Anders Bjork who taps it off to Andreas Athanasiou who’s all alone comes flying down the center of the ice takes a shot wide which bounces and he smacks towards the net, and for some ungodly reason Tristian Jarry comes way out of his net and he desperately tries to get back as the shot bounces around his pads, and Andreas Athanasiou taps it in behind him the minute he sees it. It was literally comical, this team at this point didn’t look like a team that should even be in the playoff race, they looked like one in the Connor Bedard race.

The penguins get another powerplay, and pull Jarry, they continue to waste another opportunity, followed by another lack luster effort to stop Tyler Johnson who skips his way up the ice for an empty netter.

Finally, the Penguins get another goal by Danton Heinen in a sloppy defensive play by the Hawks, but at this point it’s all of to little to late with 38 seconds left.

The Penguins look defeated by this point. Jarry stays pulled, and the Penguins do the typical meandering around the ice not even trying to put everything they’ve got into getting goals in the last 38 seconds, which is very unlikely but bot impossible. The puck floats out to the middle of the ice and no effort in stopping the Hawks from putting another one away. Game over, and most likely season over…

Now the Penguins need a miracle to happen. As I don’t see the Islanders giving up this gift from the Penguins to lose against Montreal.

Let’s be honest, the Penguins deserve this, I got some satisfaction in watching them lose, knowing that finally the realization that this group are not good, not fast and not playoff worthy.

This team doesn’t deserve the playoffs outside of the core, and as much as Sidney Crosby tried to carry this clown fiesta to the playoffs, he’s just one player, and a supporting cast of absolute Neanderthals.

All I have to say is goodbye Hextall, you won’t be missed.