Mark Madden: The Penguins face a tall task to reach the playoffs, so where do they go from here?

The Pittsburgh Penguins’ run is over. (It’s actually been over for years, but now there’s no denying.)

The Penguins are a withered husk of what they used to be and fancy they still are.

Sidney Crosby is their primary strength. That’s easy to believe.

But the Penguins can’t score. They have the seventh-fewest goals in the NHL. No line threatens much beyond Crosby’s. Evgeni Malkin is slow, lifeless and has netted one goal in his last 10 games. Malkin is a spent force.

The power play is utterly useless. It ranks third-last with a 13.9 conversion percentage, too often looks comically bad and is the biggest tangible reason the Penguins will miss the playoffs.

That’s despite adding Erik Karlsson. Or perhaps because Karlsson was added.

The power play won’t improve. Failure is in that unit’s DNA. The participants hit the ice expecting to misfire, then shot-pass their way to oblivion.

The Penguins have absorbed 14 one-goal losses. The power play is 6 for 59 in those defeats. #tangible

Besides Crosby, the Penguins’ top strength is goaltending. The Penguins have allowed the second-fewest goals in the NHL. Tristan Jarry leads the league in shutouts. He’s fifth in goals-against average and sixth in save percentage. Jarry and Alex Nedeljkovic give the Penguins a chance to win most nights.

But the Penguins don’t.

You have fun playing the blame game. Me, too.

Malkin should have been traded in 2018 when he could have brought huge return, or not re-signed in 2022 by way of inking Vince Trocheck instead. Karlsson’s lack of impact has been startling, but he primarily was acquired to facilitate dumping dead weight. (See Granlund, Mikael…who, by the way, has more points for San Jose than Reilly Smith or Rickard Rakell have for the Penguins.)

Has coach Mike Sullivan hit his expiration date? Maybe.

Should assistant coach Todd Reirden be made a sacrificial lamb at the altar of the rotten power play he guides? Perhaps the Penguins need a Matt Canada.

But what matters most is where the Penguins go from here.

Was president of hockey ops/GM Kyle Dubas hired to take the Penguins into the future, or to preside over a nostalgia show that digs the hole deeper?

That’s a tougher question than it appears.

The nostalgia shows sells tickets and merchandise. It provides the illusion of “one more run.” It retires numbers and burnishes franchise legend.

Different pieces could be assembled around the core three. Hope isn’t a strategy, but you can sell it — not least to the core three, who can’t complain about the current state. They wanted to stay together. They don’t want another coach.

Home games at PPG Paints Arena are filled to 97.7% capacity. The 633-game sellout streak is long since dead. But that’s still impressive attendance given the Penguins’ record. That’s star power and hope.

The Penguins aren’t going to burn it down. That doesn’t seem FSG’s style, and that’s not how it’s done in a league with a salary cap.

But the Penguins can’t swap any future in a vain attempt to “win now.” They can’t trade draft picks or one of their few legit prospects.

They absolutely must deal Jake Guentzel before the March 8 trade deadline. The Penguins are going nowhere. Guentzel won’t give the Penguins a discount to re-up, nor should he. Letting Guentzel walk for nothing would constitute internal sabotage.

If the locker room bristles at that notion, it should look in the mirror.

Prior GM Ron Hextall should have let go Rakell and/or Bryan Rust when they reached free agency and budgeted cap space to retain Guentzel when the time came. But that would have required thinking ahead and doing something that wasn’t easy, both anathema to Hextall.

The Penguins are nine points out of third place in the Metropolitan Division, seven points out of a wild card. They must jump over three teams to achieve either. In the era of the loser point, that’s an extremely tall task. 

The Penguins have won 23 and lost 26. Do they look like they’re ready to win, say, seven straight?

I honestly don’t know what the Penguins’ path will be. If I had to bet, I’d wager on limping along and preserving the nostalgia show. But then why was Dubas hired? He’s a lot smarter and better than having to do that.

It’s a shame to waste Crosby’s pyrotechnics. Kris Letang is also playing great. But Crosby and Letang are out there, too.