The annual Penguins dad's trip is now underway and to say the least, their first showing was absolutely embarrassing as the Penguins dropped their seventh straight game to the Ottawa Senators, 4-0.
There was no second in this hockey game where the Penguins showed any sense of urgency or life to win, let alone score. They were destroyed in the special teams department and 5v5 against an Ottawa team that had lost their last four home games and had lost five of their last six.
Penguins killer Linus Ullmark improves to 7-0-0 against the team and has a 2.71 GAA and .921 career save percentage against the franchise.
With their seventh straight loss tonight, the last time the Penguins had a longer losing streak was 10 straight games which was 0-10-0 way back from in the month of January 2006.
The last three games played against the Senators, the Pens have scored a total of only one goal and zero at even strength.
There was absolutely zero passion in the Penguins play tonight as they seemed more like a team that was frustrated with the home losses and haven't mentally recovered from the loss against the Anaheim Ducks which appear to have broken the team entirely.
What Dan Muse has shown is that he is basically a Mike Sullivan 2.0 clone. His continuation to ice lifeless and non-effective hockey players continues to show lack of awareness and simply just bad coaching. Muse also showed no sense of pushing his players or ability to start benching players which he seems afraid to do. He gives the same robotic answers after every loss as Sullivan would.
"It's everybody involved. We all have to dig in, and we got to find a way to be better."Dan Muse on the loss against OTT
Muse was brought in to be the teacher to the new generation and future of the Penguins. With the current roster, he is not the right coach for the amount of 30 year old plus players they have on the roster and despite the sample size, he is not fit for this responsibility yet at this level where it's a young man's game and his constant obsession with Kevin Hayes and Danton Heinen speak volumes.
Sidney Crosby continued to look checked out and lifeless as he still stands one point away from Mario's all time Penguins points record. The only possibilities lead to the fact he is either playing hurt, which he took a shot off his foot against Anaheim during the five home-stand, he is sick which a bug is going around the team or he is legit checked out and fed up.
The Penguins will now move towards a home and home with the Montreal Canadiens who defeated the pens thoroughly on December 11, 4-2 in a game where the Pens also looked lifeless.