Mark Madden: The Penguins' problems can be fixed, but will they be acknowledged?

The Penguins were on a 10-4-3 run heading into Monday’s visit to Arizona. That seems pretty good, but not really.

That’s 10 wins, 7 losses. Don’t be lured by the siren song of the loser point.

Before the Penguins started that run, they were six points out of a wild-card berth, seven points out of third place in the Metropolitan Division and the playoff spot that accompanies.

Now they’re five points away from a wild card, seven points shy of third. The Penguins must leapfrog four teams to achieve either. They have made almost zero progress.

The Penguins’ run appears to be dissipating. They lost three of four heading into Arizona. That includes blowing a 2-0 third-period lead at Las Vegas Saturday, ultimately bowing 3-2.

The Penguins slowed down noticeably in the third period at Vegas.

That couldn’t be because they spent three nights prior there, could it? Why did the Penguins get to Vegas so early? They had their rookie party, but don’t really have any rookies. They canceled practice Thursday.

The Penguins aren’t collapsing but aren’t improving.

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The same problems linger with no end in sight. They’re poor three-on-three, having lost their last three overtimes. The power play has converted just six times in its last 50 attempts.

The penalty-kill is excellent, having conceded just four goals in its last 36 tries.

The goaltending is good if inconsistent.

The bottom six don’t contribute enough, but you can’t get blood from a stone.

Lesser lights on defense like Ryan Graves, P.O Joseph and Chad Ruhwedel have experienced slight upticks in play. (Emphasis on “slight.”)

But the Penguins really have just three skaters they can count on: Sidney Crosby, Kris Letang and Jake Guentzel. Marcus Pettersson, too, in a Steady Eddie-type fashion. (Guentzel, a free agent at season’s end, might get swapped by the March 8 trade deadline unless the Penguins make a compelling on-ice case to keep him. So far, they’re not.)

Erik Karlsson and Evgeni Malkin are problems.

Karlsson is a human hand grenade on defense, an exploding pinata of puzzling turnovers and odd-man breaks against.

Karlsson’s stats are OK: Seven goals, 25 assists, plus-10 in 43 games. But they don’t justify his defensive lapses.

Letang has just three less points despite being relegated from the top power play by Karlsson. Letang has outplayed Karlsson badly. Full credit to Letang, but that wasn’t supposed to happen.

Karlsson has been rotten on the power play, mostly refusing to shoot.

I expected, after victories, to more often say, “Wow, Karlsson did a lot to win that game.” That hasn’t happened. Karlsson hasn’t had proper impact, not for a defending Norris Trophy winner who’s making $11.5 million.

Malkin, meantime, continues to slow down in every sense.

Like Karlsson, Malkin’s stats are decent: 15 goals, 22 assists in 43 games.

But, at 37, he won’t temper his game even slightly and no longer has the speed or hands to execute much of what he prefers to do.

Malkin might be the power play’s single biggest saboteur. He tries what’s too difficult, rarely taking what’s there.

He leads the Penguins in penalty minutes. Too many get amassed through petulance, like his third-period slash at Vegas that led to the Golden Knights netting the game-winning goal just after Malkin left the box.

The Penguins should have traded Malkin in 2018 when his value was high, regrouping younger talent around Crosby. Or they should have let Malkin walk via free agency two offseasons ago, signing Pittsburgh guy Vince Trocheck instead. Trocheck has become a power-play catalyst with the New York Rangers and is an excellent two-way center.

Instead, the Penguins chose nostalgia. That’s not what the organization was thinking then. But that’s how it’s turning out.

Karlsson and Malkin are making proper effort. But they’re also most responsible for collapsing the team’s structure.

The Penguins’ problems can be fixed.

But first, the problems must be acknowledged. With this group, that’s the difficult part.