Penguins early season concern meter: Crosby’s start, Silovs consistency, defensive mistakes

It is four games of an 84-game season. There has been some good, some bad, and some ugly. Don’t let yourself get too caught up in early results and let them dictate your thoughts on where the season is going. There is a lot of hockey left, and a lot of time for good and bad elements of the team to develop.

Reality: The Penguins are not as good as they looked in the season-opener, and they are probably not as bad as they looked for portions of the Winnipeg and Washington games. I also thought they kind of put some things together in the second half of the Washington game and largely carried the play throughout the second and third periods, outside of two absolutely braindead turnovers that derailed all of that progress. The numbers back up that eye-test observation, as well. Those mistakes still count, and they still hurt, and they are still concerns, but eliminating one or two mistakes is a hell of a lot easier than figuring out how to tilt the ice and play better over an extended period of time.

There are still a handful of concerning trends that have developed early on that are probably inspiring different levels of panic.

Among them: the play of Sidney Crosby and the first line, the defense itself, and Arturs Silovs, who I don’t think has been very good since the season-opener (where he was never really challenged).

Let’s dig a little deeper into each of them and try to assess the proper level of concern and panic on a scale of 1-10, with one being “everything is normal” and 10 being “full blown panic.”

Wednesday night in Washington was a harsh reminder as to how imposing father time is on everybody in sports. Even the greats.

Everybody was excited to see the start of the final chapter of the Crosby vs. Alex Ovechkin rivalry, and then both players were complete non-factors in the game.

Ovechkin played 14 minutes, had no points and recorded two shots on goal. After being on the fence about his future, he played two games this season and then decided this was going to be it.

Crosby was a minus-4 and was mostly invisible, continuing what has been a shockingly quiet start to the season for him and his line. He is almost two years younger than Ovechkin, and has been a better overall player, including over the past few years, but he is still 39. He is not going to dominate for ever.

There were eight goals scored in a Penguins-Capitals game and those guys factored into the scoring on exactly zero of them.

It’s a new era, folks.

The Penguins are now four games into the season and Crosby has zero goals, two assists, while the Penguins have been outscored by a 3-5 margin with him on the ice during 5-on-5 play. Through four games they have been significantly better when he is not on the ice versus when he is on the ice. Not only are they being outscored with him on the ice, their expected goal share is a 54 percent while he has received heavy offensive zone starts. When he is off the ice the Penguins are outscoring teams by a 9-4 margin, have a 60 percent expected goal share while those lines have received primarily defensive zone starts.

I’m just stating facts here, folks. And I’m watching the games. The eye-test isn’t much better. And given that his line has already rotated through three different wingers in four games to try and find the right fit I am guessing the coaching staff feels the same way.

Now, again, it’s four games. Crosby has been a slow starter in recent years, and he had even less time to build up for this season in training camp and the preseason. He is going to slow down at some point. The points will decline more significantly at some point. I am not sure we are at the point where his game has completely deteriorated over night (or over the summer). But I do think it’s more than acceptable to look at these first four games and say, “hmm, something doesn’t seem right with the 39-year-old forward here.”

Concern level: 5/10

I am on record as saying that I kind of like this defense and some of the players on it, at least in the context of what the Penguins 2025-26 defense was and what it looked like.

League-wide, and on an NHL level? It’s probably middle of the pack at best.

But compared to the 2025-26 Penguins level? I can see it being better than that group.

The early returns are not yet consistently there. Mostly due to the turnovers. Wednesday was shocking in that regard, with Trevor van Riemsdyk being guilty of two baffling plays, one of which led directly to a goal off the opening face-off, and another that led to a power play that eventually led to a goal that took away all of the momentum the Penguins had built in a comeback attempt.

Kris Letang and Declan Carlile were also guilty of shockingly bad plays that directly led to goals.

Just baffling, self-inflicted mistakes that clearly altered the flow and outcome of the game.

A lot of those same mistakes were also visible in Monday’s game against Winnipeg.

While it’s easier to clean up “a couple of mistakes” than it is to carry the pace of play, that doesn’t mean it’s actually going to happen, or that those mistakes are going to stop. Maybe they don’t. Maybe that’s what these guys do where they play well for 30 minutes and then just wet the bed two or three times a game.

That is a real possibility.

Concern level: 6.5/10

I said at the start of the season that goaltending was going to impact a lot this season, and what it looks like for the Penguins. Silovs and Sergei Murashov certainly have the potential to be very good and steal some games, but they are also massive wild-cards that could put the Penguins into the lottery very, very quickly no matter what else is going on around them.

After posting a shutout in the opener, Silovs has allowed 10 goals in his next two starts and is now on the negative side of goals saved above expected (minus-1.4 via MoneyPuck).

My concern here isn’t necessarily about any one game, or any two games, or even his specific performance on Wednesday. Not only because it’s a small sample size, but also because the play in front of him has been spotty. It’s mostly about his overall play going back to the start of last season, and some of the things you see from him (and are still seeing from him).

He has had some great games, and the bigger situation, the better he seems to play. But He also has a tendency to just give them some non-competitive games and moments, especially when it comes to some of his plays with the puck and his rebound control. The difference between his floor and ceiling on most nights is like walking into the Sistine Chapel. I just don’t know that I trust him on a consistent basis.

Concern level: 7/10