Here’s betting the Pittsburgh Penguins navigate a way out of their seven-game losing streak and reach the NHL playoffs for a 17th straight season.

Here’s admitting I don’t see another path besides just playing better.

Who the Penguins are and what they do is all but set in stone.

They didn’t decide to keep the core three only to deal one. Anyway, no-movement clauses prevent that. Any other change is minor.

Coach Mike Sullivan is signed through 2027. The Penguins would never eat that contract. Anyway, it’s way too early to consider firing Sullivan.

Defenseman Brian Dumoulin is having a nightmare start. Dumoulin looks slow, clumsy and lost. At 31, he may be washed up because of injuries and surgeries. But, given his lackluster play and $4.1 million cap hit, he’s untradeable.

So is useless winger Kasperi Kapanen and his $3.2 million cap number. Kapanen has three goals in his past 51 games and is utterly nonthreatening. He’s more worried about being a postgame fashion plate than he is what happens during.

Giving Kapanen a two-year deal at that price was a big mistake by general manager Ron Hextall, especially with defenseman Ty Smith stuck with the Penguins’ Wilkes-Barre/Scranton farm team because of cap limitations. Smith should be with the Penguins but can’t.

The penalty-kill has been viciously bad. Its success percentage of 73.2% ranks 27th in the NHL, and it stinks at every metric adjacent.

The power play converts 20% of the time, ranking 20th. That’s adequate but doesn’t live up to the talent assembled and rarely puts foes under siege.

Nickel-and-dime changes are afoot, like tinkering with the defense pairings and line combinations. That’s like slapping a butterfly stitch on a shotgun wound.

The Penguins won’t change their style. Simply will not. They will activate defensemen, indulge risk to pursue reward and manage leads by trying to extend them.

It’s not a matter of working harder. The effort mostly has been there.

The goaltending hasn’t stolen games but hasn’t blown them, either.

So, what the Penguins do either gets better, or doesn’t.

When the decision was made to keep the core three intact and allow the Penguins to continue aging out, the decision also was made to watch the team eventually go splat. Is that already happening?

The responsibility to change things falls on the core three. This is what Sidney Crosby, Kris Letang and Evgeni Malkin wanted. It’s up to them to manage it. Merely compiling good stats isn’t enough. They must be the reason the Penguins win.

Some blame the bottom six by way of lacking scoring depth. That’s picking an easy scapegoat in the vein of Matt Canada. Brock McGinn won’t save the season.

Anyway, fourth-liner Josh Archibald just had goals in consecutive games. For him, that’s Mike Bossy territory.

Here’s proposing a couple of butterfly stitches:

• Move Crosby from down low on the power play to the right half-wall. The Penguins lack a comfortable reset point, like Phil Kessel provided on the left half-wall or Sergei Gonchar was up top. Malkin is a shooter at the right half-wall, but he can shoot from somewhere else. Crosby at the right half-wall organizes the power play.

• When injury creates a spot in the top six, give Samuel Poulin a shot. The Penguins took Poulin in the first round of the 2019 draft because he racked up points in junior hockey. They since have tried to turn him into a checker without even seeing if he can produce at the NHL level. He’s 21. It’s a bit early to do that.

Or, the Penguins continue losing and tank for Connor Bedard, the next big thing. It’s worked before.

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