The Pittsburgh Penguins are a supremely talented team. Despite their middling performance to this point of the 2015-16 NHL season, of their overall ability there can be no doubt. Captain Sidney Crosby leads a forward corps and, more specifically, a top-six that is, in terms of talent, the envy of most of the league. Unfortunately, Crosby and Co's on-ice efforts have been undone in recent years by poor to outright bad defensive groups and what has been said on more than one occasion is a kind of organizational pressure, weighing on their baby-faced captain.
With the team struggling again to realize their full potential this season, GM Jim Rutherford has become increasingly vocal in the media about upgrades his team needs. On Tuesday, TSN's Bob McKenzie revealed that Rutherford hasn't just been vocal in front of cameras and microphones - he's been vocal when working the phones on trades as well.
"I think they're looking hard at trying to make some trades," McKenzie said, while appearing on Toronto's TSN 1050, via the transcription from Today's Slap Shot. "They're trying to find a puck-moving, top-4 defenseman. They're still continuing to look for an elite level, skill guy that could play alongside Sidney Crosby, because now that Kessel hasn't had the chemistry with Crosby."
Kessel, perhaps the offseason's biggest addition anywhere in the NHL, simply hasn't been able to build an on-ice connection with Crosby. Kessel has become a fixture on the Pens' second unit alongside Evgeni Malkin and Crosby has been playing with an odd assortment of forwards, usually Chris Kunitz and, at present, Beau Bennett.
With word coming earlier Tuesday that longtime Penguin Pascal Dupuis was being forced to retire due to medical complications connected to bloodclots only serves to rob Pittsburgh of another player who has thrived in the past playing alongside Crosby.
While the team has seemingly moved past some of the early issues of this season, when Malkin suggested that there was in-fighting going on, and now sits at 14-10-2, there's no denying that this isn't the finished product that Rutherford or head coach Mike Johnston were hoping for when they assembled this group this offseason.
The offense, led by Crosby and Kessel, has severely underperformed - they're 26th in the league in goals for - and the defense, not expected to be a worldbeating group prior to the season, hasn't overachieved as hoped. Add it all up and it means one thing - the Penguins are a bad team.
Making things worse for Rutherford is that all the trades he's enacted over the last few years have left him with little ammunition to add any new pieces. And even if he had the necessary assets, at some point you've got to stop passing the buck and shooting for quick fixes.
The Penguins are just as talented as they were when the season started, but they're also flawed - significantly so. And it just doesn't seem like there's a quick fix for what ails this Pittsburgh group.
