As I said in the regular season preview back in September – although, as it is a cliché, it doesn’t really have to be said – every team starts out a new season with the hopes and aspirations that this will be a breakthrough year. For some teams that might mean climbing out of the basement for the first time in some years, while for others it may mean making the playoffs after years of being in the shadows. For the Pittsburgh Penguins, this was to be the some-teenth year that they were a serious contender for the Stanley Cup and, on paper, they looked like they could actually be in that discussion. There were question marks, naturally, but if enough players actually played up to their expectations, maybe even exceeding expectations, there would easily be a path for the Penguins to be a playoff team and probably win a series or two. Forty-eight games down, thirty-four to go, and right now even a playoff spot is not looking so likely for Pittsburgh.

The Penguins continue to be mired in the bottom half of the Metropolitan Division standings, and with consecutive one-goal losses against out-of-conference opponents, it’s getting harder by the day to imagine Pittsburgh recovering satisfactorily enough to shake themselves out of their self-afflicted mediocrity and become a genuine threat to win this year’s championship. Even if the Penguins were to climb their way into the top four of the division and stay there, they now have to contend with the Atlantic Division’s Detroit Red Wings and Toronto Maple Leafs for the two Wild Card spots. As of this writing, Pittsburgh sits seven points behind both teams, although by the time you read this both Detroit and Toronto have played again and may have extended their lead. If you’re hoping for the more sure bet of possibly third in the Metro Division, the Penguins have nine points to make up on their cross-state rivals in Philadelphia; with the Flyers playing on Monday, their lead could also be more by the time Pittsburgh takes the ice against the Florida Panthers tonight.

I know I keep thinking it, and I know a lot of other people have as well, but the idea that something has to give keeps growing. Making the playoffs is becoming an increasingly far-flung idea, let alone winning the Cup, but the Penguins seemed dead-set on trying for those goals this offseason. To be sellers by the trade deadline would also likely mean giving up on that dream, but the fact is that they can wait to sell as long as they want so long as they still think they can find their way to a playoff spot. It seems like hubris then that they would be buyers, but time is shorter for general manager Kyle Dubas to make the decision to buy rather than sell. If they do intend to play for the Stanley Cup this spring, Dubas needs to make a course-correction sooner rather than later. Already Pittsburgh’s margin for error is becoming increasingly narrow, and waiting until the last minute to buy might not make enough of an impact with what time is left in the regular season.

Unfortunately, because the roster is laden with underperformers (highlights include Rickard Rakell, Reilly Smith, Ryan Graves), Dubas is likely going to have to bite the bullet and ship off the most premium long-term assets in order to get some team to take on those guys and bring in someone who may actually be productive. In that sense it is a quadruple gamble: (1.) that the incoming player(s) will actually be more productive than what’s going out, which is scarcely a guarantee; (2.) that the outbound player won’t magically be better on their new team; (3.) that the team will end up making the playoffs and playing up to the preseason expectations; and (4.) that the team won’t continue to be stuck in mediocrity, wasting what few valuable future assets they have remaining on the magical dream of another championship for the Core 3.

There’s not a lot of room left for optimism and positivity. The Penguins need a whole lot more wins than losses from this point on if they are indeed to find themselves in the playoffs in a couple of months, but what probably has to come first is making some moves and hoping to improve the roster. The clock for Kyle Dubas to make that decision is ticking.