The Pittsburgh Penguins lost again on Thursday, dropping a 4-0 decision to the Ottawa Senators that was a concerning replay of Tuesday’s loss to the Edmonton Oilers. They fell behind early, showed little pushback, and quietly lost by multiple goals without much of a serious challenge. At least they have moved on from losing multiple goal leads to just simply losing by multiple goals. It is less stressful and infuriating that way.
It is also still not good, and it extends the current losing streak to seven games.
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This is relatively uncharted territory for the Penguins in the Sidney Crosby era, and history suggests it is probably not a good thing for their chances of building on what was at one time a strong start and making a surprising playoff appearance.
First, from a Penguins perspective, this is only the fifth seven-game losing streak that has happened in the Crosby era.
Of the previous four, three of them happened during Crosby’s rookie season in 2005-06 when the team won just 22 games.
That season saw the Penguins have losing streaks of nine games (to open the season!), 10 games and seven games.
The nine-game losing streak to open the season saw the Penguins lose four games in overtime or shootout (much like this losing streak), while the 10-game streak was entirely regulation defeats. That losing streak was snapped with an 8-1 win over an equally bad Washington Capitals team, and was immediately followed by the other seven-game losing streak (which featured one overtime loss).
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The other previous seven-game streak came early in the 2022-23 season when they went 0-6-1 between Oct. 24 and Nov. 5. It put them into an early 4-6-2 hole that was going to be a challenge to climb out of. They ended up going 15-3-2 over the next 20 games, but that early losing streak, combined with another six-game losing streak later in the season, ended up playing a huge role in them missing the playoffs by a single point, snapping their streak of consecutive playoff appearances.
Until Thursday’s defeat, those were the only seven-game losing streaks that have happened during the Crosby era. This is also the only one that has taken place during the Crosby-Evgeni Malkin era, but even that comes with something of an asterisk because Evgeni Malkin has not actually played in any of these seven games.
The Penguins also missed the playoffs in each of those two seasons with seven-game losing streaks. And that probably should not be surprising. Seven games is a significant chunk of a team’s season (almost 10 percent) and given many three-point games exist in the NHL and how difficult it is to make up points as the season goes on, giving away 10 percent of your season in one big segment is a problem.
The good news: There have been 32 teams that have had a seven-game losing streak in a season since 2005-06 and still ended up making the playoffs.
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The bad news: Over that same time period there have been more than 200 seven-game losing streaks from teams that did not make the playoffs.
Some of those instances were the same team having multiple seven-game losing streaks in the same season (like the 2005-06 Penguins), but at the end of the day it still comes out around a 14 percent chance of actually make the playoffs when you lose seven games in a row.
If the losing streak reaches eight games, only 15 of those teams have made the playoffs.
if by some chance it gets to 10 games, only four of those teams have made the playoffs.
So.
Yeah.
The odds are not in your favor when you lose seven games in a row, and those odds only keep going down the longer the losing streak gets.
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Not only because of what that does to your season in the standings, but also because it is probably a pretty good indicator that your team in general is simply not very good.
That is what makes this particular seven-game winning streak so maddening for the Penguins. You can fairly say they deserved to lose against Montreal, Edmonton and Ottawa. Those were flat games where they did not play well and ended up with the result they deserved.
But the other four games were just …. baffling. They remain baffling. Everything about the situation they have put themselves in is baffling.
They outplayed Dallas and lost. Okay. Sometimes that happens. Dallas is an outstanding team. Sometimes they are going to get you if you give them another chance. It was an encouraging process with a frustrating result.
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But the Anaheim, San Jose and Utah games are the type of games that even bad teams win given the positions they were in. If they simply hold on to those games the entire season looks different right now. Three additional points would give the Penguins a .606 points percentage right now. That would be the third-best points percentage in the Eastern Conference. They would still be in a great position and nobody would be talking about how the fast start had gone away. Because the fast start would still be happening.
That is also what, from a human element perspective, makes this particular seven-game losing streak even more damaging. This team looks broken given the way they have lost some of these games. The confidence looks gone. The energy looks gone.
If it continues any longer the focus of the season will eventually have to shift to what we all originally thought it would be from the beginning. The future.
