A five game home-stand, absolutely wasted by the Penguins as they drop all five (0-3-2) as they fall to Tristan Jarry's Edmonton Oilers, 6-4 in a game where the Oilers power-play, speed and ability to shoot the puck were too much for a slow Penguins team that once again had zero answer.
Pittsburgh didn't have to worry about blowing any multi goal leads, because they didn't have any leads in this game despite the 10 seconds where Justin Brazeau had beaten Jarry on the power-play.
The spotlight wasn't on the Sidney Crosby vs Connor McDavid matchup. It was the spotlight of Tristan Jarry vs Stuart Skinner who were both traded in a goalie swap on December 12.
NHL players are human, too 🗣️
— SportsNet Pittsburgh (@SNPittsburgh) December 17, 2025
Stuart Skinner says it was weird facing his former team, but he managed to settle in during the first period pic.twitter.com/aHrBqRKEav
This home stand signifies that the Penguins are all who the media and analysts thought they were at the beginning of the season, a very bottom feeder hockey team who is still slow, mediocre and not up to speed with any young and upcoming teams like San Jose, Anaheim and Utah. Who they all lost during this five game home stand to put it into perspective.
Sidney Crosby this home-stand looked very uninterested in playing any sort of hockey and checked out despite climbing one point away from Mario Lemieux's all time Penguins points leader. Crosby looks pretty fed up with losing and the Penguins can only hope he doesn't finally give up and ask for a trade.
The five games were nothing short of an embarrassment and may just be one of the most worst home-stands in the history of the franchise. During the five games they allowed 24 goals which is pretty self explanatory to all the multi goals leads they gave up that led to them going 0-3-2 and giving up all their games in hand.
Head Coach Dan Muse continues to make some mind blowing coaching decisions by continuing to be icing Kevin Hayes, Danton Heinen, Kris Letang who have all been incredibly ineffective and useless in the Penguins lineup with the absence of Evgeni Malkin who continues to be out of the lineup with a phantom injury.
Another huge loss after the loss to the Oilers, the Penguins had multiple games in hand on many of the team in the Metropolitan which has now faded so quickly just like that, any advantage they had to climb back into it is gone and now it's a grind the rest of the way.
During the five straight home losses, the Penguins showed little heart and an ability to as always not play a full 60 minutes which is why they have as of December 16, nine OT or Shootout losses in all winnable games, if you take those nine points away, the Penguins would be dead last in the Eastern Conference and last in the NHL.
If Pittsburgh has any hope of salvaging the season at this point in the season where the Christmas roster freeze is soon to come into effect and the Olympic break in two months, they gotta smarten up and coach has to get his act together.