Mark Madden: Without changes at the top, Penguins will stagnate

The Penguins are in a very important transitional period.

Let’s see if there’s any actual transition.

The Penguins have four large contracts: Sidney Crosby, Evgeni Malkin, Kris Letang and Erik Karlsson. They don’t want to move Crosby, Malkin or Letang. That’s the franchise’s commitment.

The Penguins can’t ditch Karlsson. His $11.5 million cap hit prohibits, as do no-movement clauses held by all four.

Coach Mike Sullivan is signed to a big ticket, too: He makes $5.5 million per year through 2026-27. If Fenway Sports Group fired Sullivan, they’d pay him lots of money to not coach ‘til he took another job. FSG doesn’t want to.

FSG likes Sullivan, too: There’s a Boston connection, and they respect the early part of his Pittsburgh tenure.

So, it looks like the four large contracts and Sullivan will all return in 2024-25.

If that’s the case, the Penguins are the same team. Nothing will change.

Sullivan has been loath to adjust systems since the day he became coach in 2015, emphasizing speed and fast play. That worked when Crosby, Malkin and Letang were in their prime and augmented by roadrunners like Carl Hagelin.

With Jeff Carter, not so much. (He won’t be back, mercifully.)

Crosby, Malkin and Letang have no desire to play for another coach. As ranking veterans, they carry clout.

So, nothing will change. The coach won’t change. The key personnel won’t change. The method won’t change. The rest is relatively insignificant.

President of hockey ops/GM Kyle Dubas is in a rough spot.

Dubas can work around the prevailing circumstances, effectively waiting them out. He can stockpile prospects, promoting them when appropriate.

But the Penguins will look the same, play the same and very probably do the same.

The Penguins have sold 98% of their tickets this season, which justifies that approach. For now. Let’s see what season-ticket renewals are like for next campaign.

I’m not shouting madly for radical change. Those mentioned have delivered a lot. FSG has chosen to maintain a nostalgia act. In many ways, it’s understandable.

But keeping the top of the pyramid status quo validates and perpetuates the stagnation that permeates the franchise. It serves up more of the same. It digs the hole deeper.

Some phony measures will be instituted, like replacing Sullivan’s coaching staff. That changes nothing.

The Penguins will likely make a big play to get Jake Guentzel back.

But that probably won’t be successful. Guentzel and his agent have that big free-agency payday in their nostrils.

Will the Penguins make that attempt to succeed, or to just try? Would resuming his partnership with Crosby be enough to lure Guentzel back to a fading team? His career would outlast Crosby’s. (Probably.)

When youngsters get promoted, will Sullivan use them? He hasn’t trusted kids since the Stanley Cup years of 2016 and ‘17, and only then because he had coached them with the Penguins’ farm team in Wilkes-Barre/Scranton. Will Vasily Ponomarev play less than Noel Acciari?

How will Crosby, Malkin and Letang react if the rot worsens? Will cementing the bond of eternal brotherhood give way to second thoughts?

It’s hard to tell. Crosby hasn’t been on a team this bad since his rookie year. Malkin and Letang have never plumbed these depths.

Staying together is what they wanted. They got it. Crosby talks as if it’s a three-man commitment. But we’ll see.

They certainly didn’t want Guentzel to be traded. The mourning continues, diluted by the false dawn of somehow being just five points out of a playoff berth. Except for three or four teams, the whole Eastern Conference stinks.

As a Penguins lifer, I’m not particularly bothered by any of this. More intrigued.

Hobnobbing with history at the breakup dinner for the Mario Lemieux Fantasy Hockey Camp reminded me of the greatness I’ve witnessed.

Announcing great Mike Lange was on my show Monday. We laughingly agreed that we’ve seen far worse.

Just get in the draft lottery and win it. That’s worked before.

The Steelers get it, unbelievably enough. They knew that bringing back the coach and quarterback would equate to zero meaningful change. Hello, Russell Wilson.