Barring a miracle turnaround under coach Mike Sullivan, it appears the Pittsburgh Penguins' run as an elite team is over, whether they make the playoffs this season or not.
Recently fired coach Mike Johnston might be at fault for some of their struggles, but the Penguins' big picture is clear: They have fading superstars, a broken-down prospect system and bandages covering up giant gashes in the team's depth.
While they won only one Stanley Cup during the Dan Bylsma era, the Pens finished in either first or second place in the division every season from 2008-09 until Bylsma was fired after losing in the second round of the playoffs in 2014. Pittsburgh posted standings point percentages over 60 in each of those seasons, and as high as 75 percent during the lockout-shortened 2012-13 season.
In Johnston's first season, their point percentage dropped under 60 for the first time since 2005-06, and this season Pittsburgh is sitting in sixth place in the division, with a mere 35 points in 33 games. None of the underlying statistics (their 14th-ranked Corsi for percentage, for example) suggest a 180-degree change in their play is on the horizon.
The Penguins are left in a position where they can either hope for a fairytale or start thinking about the future.
There is a strong case -- albeit an entirely speculative one, let's be clear -- to be made for them to shop their two most valuable assets: Evgeni Malkin and Sidney Crosby.
Precedent for jump-starting a rebuild like this
If you think this concept is crazy in the case of stars as big as Malkin and Crosby, you don't even need to leave the Penguins' organization to find an example in which the model has already worked in the long run. In 2001-02, the Penguins lost in the Eastern Conference finals and traded defending scoring champ Jaromir Jagr the following offseason. In the next four seasons, they finished last in their division four times. Pittsburgh then drafted goalie Marc-Andre Fleury (No. 1 overall in 2003), Malkin (No. 2, 2004) and Crosby (No. 1, 2005), who would lead their decade-long success thereafter. In this case, it wasn't about the players the Pens received as much as it was "bottoming out" and earning those lottery picks.
The Buffalo Sabres recently employed a similar strategy. Buffalo dealt top scorers Jason Pominville and Thomas Vanek, along with top-notch goalie Ryan Miller, and stocked draft picks. They finished 30th for two seasons in a row, and picked high-potential forwards Sam Reinhart and Jack Eichel with those first-rounders, while using other picks in trades for Evander Kane and Ryan O'Reilly. The team has taken major strides already this season, and will be a contender very soon (ironically, under the care of Bylsma, who was hired this past offseason).
There are plenty of examples of teams that have waited too long and landed in hockey purgatory. The Vancouver Canucks chose to re-sign Henrik Sedin and Daniel Sedin in 2013 to new four-year deals. Soon after the deals were signed, they found themselves firing coaches, making all kinds of trades and signing a goaltender to a big contract. They made the postseason in 2014-15, but are sputtering this season and are very unlikely to make any noise in the West. The Anaheim Ducks may be in the same boat a little sooner than they expected, with Ryan Getzlaf and Corey Perry both having down years and making a combined $16.825 million this season.
The Penguins could end up in the same boat.
Malkin's and Crosby's decline
You don't need to dig very deeply into Malkin's and Crosby's stats to see their decline. As a tandem, they have dipped in points per game every season since 2011-12:
For Crosby, this season's points-per-game mark is skewed by small sample size and some bad shooting luck, as he is shooting only 6.5 percent compared to a career mark of 14.1. However, his shot rate has dipped for three seasons in a row, and currently sits under three shots per game for the first time in his career. Malkin's shot rate has also fallen from 4.52 shots per game in 2011-12 to 3.03 this season.
Crosby's even-strength Corsi for percentage of 48.4 percent is his worst since the stat started being tracked in 2007-08, and Malkin's Corsi for percentage is its lowest since 2009-10, at 52.1.
The supporting cast
Age will receive most of the blame for the Hall of Fame duo's drop in point production -- and there's probably a lot of truth to that -- but the quality of the Penguins' roster around them is also at fault.
At their most recent high mark in points per game back in 2011-12, the Penguins sported four 20-goal scorers (and one with 19 goals) not named Malkin or Crosby. The 2011-12 Pens also had six defensemen who played over 1,000 minutes and had Corsi for percentages higher than 52.0, including Matt Niskanen, a puck-moving extraordinaire, and sound two-dimensional blueliner Paul Martin.
Compare that to where the Penguins are now -- it's not even close. They rank 28th in goals for, and have only two regular defensemen over 50.0 in Corsi for percentage.
The bad news: There is no easy fix. The Penguins threw a Hail Mary in trading for Phil Kessel this offseason, and it has not been the boon for the power play and top six that they had hoped. The former Bruin and Maple Leaf has been solid but not dominant, with 20 points in 29 games.
The rest of the forwards around Crosby and Malkin are struggling badly, including long-time Crosby linemate Chris Kunitz, who has four goals in 32 games despite playing 220 even-strength minutes with Sid. General manager Jim Rutherford acquired David Perron and Nick Bonino via trade, and neither has been a fit; they've combined for seven goals this season.
The trade and signing route has proved to be an exercise in futility when it comes to turning a team into a top contender. Using the Sabres as an example again, back in 2011-12, they attempted to support Vanek and Pominville with the likes of Christian Ehrhoff, Ville Leino and Robyn Regehr, and they finished in ninth place in the conference before finally deciding to rebuild.
Pittsburgh has almost zero breathing room under the salary cap (around $750,000 free, according to generalfanager.com) with Crosby, Malkin, Kessel and Patric Hornqvist under long-term deals that take up nearly $30 million altogether, and Fleury set to make $5.75 million through 2018-19.
If the Penguins aren't good enough to compete for the Stanley Cup now, and don't have the resources or cap room to acquire better players around Malkin and Crosby, how will they return to prominence?
Lack of a next wave
To acquire Kessel, the Penguins dealt one of their most prominent prospects in Kasperi Kapanen, a right winger who ranked 29th on ESPN Insider Corey Pronman's top 100 prospects list from August. The trade left Pittsburgh with winger Daniel Sprong as the only current player in the organization on Pronman's list, and he ranked 43rd.
Many of the Penguins' draft picks were traded away in win-now attempts. They did not have a first-round selection in 2013 or 2015, and dealt away a second- and third-rounder in 2014.
Pronman listed Pittsburgh as having the worst prospect pool this summer.
"There really wasn't anybody close to Pittsburgh for the 30th spot," Pronman concluded.
In other words, the Penguins will not be improving the supporting cast via their current prospect pool. And one surefire way to get back some young, top-flight prospects (or high draft picks that can be used to secure young, top-flight prospects) is dealing away veterans. What's more, by trading away their best players, it's likely the Penguins would be among the clubs in the mix for lottery picks over the next few seasons.
The market for Malkin and Crosby
Trading Malkin and Crosby would not be as easy as it was for the Sabres to deal Pominville and Vanek. Pominville was in the penultimate year of his deal, and Vanek was an upcoming unrestricted free agent.
Malkin is under contract through 2022 with a cap hit of $9.5 million, and Crosby is set to be a Penguin until 2025, with an $8.7 million cap hit.
Those are difficult contracts to trade, and they are made even more challenging by uncertainty in how much the NHL's salary cap will go up over the next few years; most teams would have a very tough time affording one of the two superstars. Furthermore, most teams are aware that players tend to begin their decline in their late 20s, a process that appears to have already started for Malkin and Crosby.
However, those two players are not Regular Joe Hockey Scorers. In a better situation, they might see a return to being the best in the world, and there are also larger-scale business reasons for a team without a star player to acquire one.
Related to that point, the Penguins are for sale. Part of the value of a wildly successful franchise that reports an average attendance of 18,533 is having two marketable players. On the other hand, they won't be marketable much longer if the Penguins miss the postseason consistently as they fade out of their primes.
A trade is easier said than done -- and as mentioned earlier, it seems pretty unlikely. But the best move for Pittsburgh would be to bottom out and start their rebuild today.