Are the Penguins Facing a Bleak Future?

I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about the Penguins’ future lately. I’ll be honest, it scares me.

The reason for my trepidation is rooted in another team’s struggles.

Like our Pens, the Chicago Blackhawks won three Stanley Cups in the first two decades of the new millennium. After suffering first-round exits in the two seasons immediately following their last Cup in 2015, the Blackhawks began a retool/rebuild on the fly. They missed the playoffs for two consecutive seasons, then appeared to right the ship by qualifying for the postseason in ’19-20.

Similar to the way the Pens endured a string of four-straight opening round exits before missing the playoffs three-straight seasons prior to last year’s surprise rebound.

Since their last postseason appearance? The Hawks have missed the playoffs six-consecutive seasons and really haven’t come close to qualifying. Based on their putrid 5-13-1 start, they’re a good bet to make it an unlucky seven-straight seasons without a postseason appearance.

Along the way the Hawks went into full tear-down mode, shedding franchise icons Patrick Kane and Jonathan Toews and sniper Alex DeBrincat, their version of Jake Guentzel.

On the plus side, during their run of futility the Hawks have consistently drafted high, including a first overall pick, a second overall and a third. In the ’23 draft they had the extreme good fortune to snag Connor Bedard, hailed as a generational player and franchise cornerstone coming out of junior in a similar fashion to Sidney Crosby.

With the likes of Bedard, 19-year-old Swedish center Anton Frondell and fellow high-pedigree forwards Frank Nazar, Roman Kantserov and Oliver Moore, not to mention defenseman (and second-overall pick) Artyom Levshunov, the Hawks boast gobs of young talent. Yet they’re as far away from competing for a playoff spot as they’ve ever been.

What truly frightens me? We currently have no one in our prospect pipeline to match the Hawks’ kids. While we have a handful of youngsters who look they might (and I emphasize might) develop into decent-to-good big-leaguers, none are what I would classify as upper-echelon talents. Not even Ben Kindel or the Ruck Twins.

If the comparatively flush Hawks are struggling, what does that say about our chances? Especially after Crosby, Evgeni Malkin and Kris Letang retire and Erik Karlsson, Rickard Rakell and Bryan Rust eventually depart.

It could easily signal a return to the pre-Mario Lemieux era, when the Pens iced some truly dreadful teams. Even worse, things could stay that way for quite some time.

How will the fan base react? Will it continue to support the team?

A very legitimate concern, especially with ticket prices being what they are.

We’ve been through this sort of thing before, you say?

Yes and no.

It’s true the team bottomed out in the aforementioned early ‘80s and again in the early 2000s. And yes, we eventually emerged from the dark times and went on to win multiple Stanley Cups.

However, I can’t stress enough how incredibly fortunate we were to draft Mario, Sid and Geno, to say nothing of snagging Jaromir Jagr fifth overall in 1990. Even after the arrival of No. 66, arguably the greatest player in the history of the sport, the Pens missed the playoffs four years running and in five of his first six seasons.

While the turnaround in the early 2000s was more instantaneous, former GMs Craig Patrick and Ray Shero did a marvelous job of drafting and filling in the supporting pieces around Sid and Geno. A scenario that isn’t likely to repeat itself this time around unless we’re able to secure a top-tier talent or two in fairly short order.

For now, our future seems pretty bleak.