With just over three weeks and twelve games left to play in the 2023-24 regular season, the Pittsburgh Penguins are on the cusp of being eliminated from playoff contention for the second season in a row. Somewhere, Ron Hextall is likely smiling in the knowledge that, despite how poorly he ran the team in his less-than-two-year tenure as Pittsburgh’s general manager, at least his successor’s first season as GM has gone worse than any of his own. Yes, for all of the excitement in acquiring one of the most highly regarded young executives this past offseason, Kyle Dubas’ first year as Penguins GM has been an abysmal failure. As the season winds down, there is virtually no hope that Pittsburgh will tie or eclipse the 91 points they secured under Hextall last season, and that has to be embarrassing for everyone involved, especially Mr. Dubas.

After all, Dubas’ stated goal for this season was to bring the Penguins back to the playoffs, and that is not going to happen. Since his hiring in June, the new general manager was faced with the task of upturning the majority of the roster and improving the team’s chances of making the postseason. On paper, his moves should all have worked. He replaced the departing Jason Zucker with Reilly Smith in a trade that only cost a third round draft pick. He moved out Jeff Petry, Casey DeSmith, Nathan Legare, Mikael Granlund, Jan Rutta, a conditional first round pick and a second round pick to acquire Erik Karlsson. He signed Lars Eller, Alex Nedeljkovic, Noel Acciari, and Ryan Graves, and extended Tristan Jarry, Valtteri Puustinen, and Drew O’Connor. We knew that the bottom six wasn’t going to provide much offense, but if everyone else produced at least around their career averages it shouldn’t have been a problem. Well…we all know how that’s gone.

The state of things is such that Pittsburgh does not have much left to play for. It is evident in how the team has played since Jake Guentzel was injured and then subsequently traded to the Penguins’ guests for tonight, the Carolina Hurricanes. Pittsburgh has three wins since the last day of February, so it’s plain to see that they will not be gaining ground on their Eastern Conference rivals in the chase for the Wild Card. They have only two games left against teams which have not been eliminated from the playoffs (both against Columbus this Thursday and Saturday), and their record against everyone else has not been good. The only silver lining one could possibly find at this point is that they are creeping out of the “mediocre” discussion and into the “bad” discussion, ergo their draft position is increasingly positive. If you go over to Tankathon.com right now, it won’t take much of your time to simulate a lottery where the Penguins jump into the top two in the Entry Draft in June. Whether they do make that leap or stay around the 8-10 spot in the draft, chances are that Pittsburgh will keep their pick and maybe draft a player who will make a difference in the next few years.

Right now however we are left in the unappealing position of either having to watch the Penguins and suffer, or ignore they exist until the draft lottery. All we can hope for at this point is that they stay healthy and play with dignity and pride, even if it is in vain.