The Pittsburgh Penguins suffered a heretofore uncommon loss against a non-playoff opponent Wednesday night, falling to the Detroit Red Wings 3-2 in overtime. Sidney Crosby had a pretty secondary assist, and some of the more important names in the trade discourse factored into the scoring as well with Bryan Rust scoring on an assist from Michael Bunting and Marcus Pettersson notching the primary assist on Anthony Beauvillier’s game-tying goal. Given their trajectory, it was more or less the ideal result to the contest for the Penguins, pulling themselves back from an 0-2 deficit in the second period and ultimately earning the overtime loser point while losing by just one goal. They retained some respectability by not getting blown out and keeping themselves in the game, and they didn’t get carried away by winning the game and taking themselves out of the race for a high-end lottery pick. Unfortunately, that’s going to be the theme for the rest of the season.

On the subject, Pittsburgh has back-to-back games tonight and tomorrow against teams which they are indirectly competing for space at the bottom of the standings: the Columbus Blue Jackets and the San Jose Sharks. Each division has one team at the bottom with 12 points (as of this writing), and Columbus is the Metropolitan Division’s representative in that regard. The Blue Jackets might have had some hope in the offseason to not be at the bottom of the division again, but the death of Johnny Gaudreau (and his brother Matthew) left a hole in the franchise. They were also forced to start the season without captain Boone Jenner, who had shoulder surgery before the season began. While they have nevertheless managed to retain some respectability, particularly with wins against Colorado, Toronto, and Edmonton, they have run into some health problems in the past month with injuries to former Penguin Erik Gudbranson and young star Kent Johnson. They are back home after being on the road for two weeks, during which they’ve lost six games in a row without scoring more than two goals.

Saturday night the Penguins return home to kick off a five-game homestand from now until Thanksgiving Eve, starting with a visit from a San Jose team which is one point out of last place in the Pacific Division. The Sharks are finishing off a four-game road trip to the Metropolitan Division which saw them eke out a 1-0 victory over the division-leading New Jersey Devils on Sunday and narrowly dropping a 4-3 shootout loss to the Philadelphia Flyers before Thursday’s visit to Manhattan for a contest with the New York Rangers. After starting the season with a nine-game losing streak, San Jose has earned back some respectability over the last eight games, winning five of those games and earning another point in that shootout loss to the Flyers. They too have been without their captain, Logan Couture, since the offseason as he is recovering from a groin injury, and they were also without this past summer’s first overall pick Macklin Celebrini for about three weeks until his return on November 5. It has been former Penguin Michael Granlund leading the Sharks in points thus far this season, as he is just over a point-per-game with seven goals and eleven assists in 17 games.

The situation for Pittsburgh is quite awkward: certainly the people in the locker room don’t want to lose either of these games (or any at all, naturally), but the writing on the wall is that winning these and any future games would be stepping further towards the uselessness of mediocrity and away from a top-end prospect in the draft this upcoming summer and the shot in the arm to the impending rebuild. Furthermore it would help these “rivals” for said draft pick in their cause to continue their own rebuilds. The Penguins are not quite basement-caliber yet, but there is no glory for narrowly missing the playoffs or even barely making it just to be railroaded by a top team in the conference. As time goes along and the team trades away players who are and have been difference makers, the likelihood of making and being competitive in the playoffs becomes lower and lower, and at some point you have to acknowledge that it’s not reality to consider yourselves a serious contender for the Cup.

When you come into every season, especially when you hope you’re going to be in the playoff discussion by the end of it, it has to be very difficult seeing the odds are against you and having to battle through it because you are a professional athlete and you are paid to meet expectations for yourself and your team. You have to ignore the growing feeling that doing your best may not be in the best interests of the franchise, reminding yourself constantly that winning games is the only true measure of success. After all, you’re a hockey player now, you’re with this team now, and what happens tomorrow is not as important as what happens today. No matter if you’re the best team on paper or the worst, a single season’s success is not measured in draft picks but in championships, and the only way to get there is to win, and to keep winning until the goal is reached. For the Pittsburgh Penguins, they are quickly approaching the point where winning will be solely for self-preservation and not for glory.