Penguins Weekly Stock Report: Erik Karlsson’s struggles are not going away

There is not much going right for the Pittsburgh Penguins right now. That is especially true with their big-money defenseman.

The week started off fine with the Pittsburgh Penguins taking care of business against a bad Montreal Canadiens team and getting two points they absolutely had to have. Then they followed that up by blowing a 3-1 third period lead against the New York Islanders and then losing another game to a playoff team in a lopsided manner on Thursday night in Carolina.

The good news is that Sidney Crosby is still playing well and getting closer to another major career milestone.

The bad news is nobody else has really played well.

Some have been worse than others.

Let’s talk about it in this week’s Trending Penguins Players

Stock Up

Sidney Crosby. Crosby remains the lone bright spot on this team with three goals and 12 shots on goal over the past week and five goals over his past four games. His recent surge after a slow start has helped him get back to a point-per-game pace, and he is now just two goals away from 600 for his career. It would be fitting if he could get them on Friday night in Washington with Alex Ovechkin on the same ice surface, especially given how much the two of them have meant to the NHL over the past decade-and-a-half and how great the rivalry has been between them and the two teams.

If he could by chance get those two goals it might be their best chance to actually beat a potential playoff team.

Beyond Crosby, I am not even sure who else has a stock that is trending up right now.

Over the past four games only four different players have scored a goal. Crosby and Blake Lizotte are the only players with more than one goal over that stretch, and one of Lizotte’s goals was an empty-net goal.

Nobody is playing particularly well defensively, nobody is scoring goals, and when they play a reasonably decent team they are not even close to competitive on the scoreboard.

It is just a very bleak situation right now with this team, and beyond Crosby’s chase for some milestones there is not much else that is standing out in a positive light.

Stock Down

Erik Karlsson. It would not be unfair to describe Erik Karlsson’s 2022-23 performance as disappointing. I will not say he was bad, because objectively speaking he wasn’t. He just did not play at the Norris Trophy level we expected and he did not come close to the 100-point mark again. But for whatever flaws he had defensively, and for as much as his point total dropped, I still think you can make a pretty convincing argument that he created more offensively than he gave up defensively, and his production was still among the best in the NHL for defensemen.

He was not great. He was not bad. He was just a little less than we and the Penguins probably hoped for him to be.

But this season?

This season he has been the player his harshest and loudest critics thought he was a year ago. While there have been some encouraging games in recent weeks from him, there have been far too many games — and plays — like we saw on Thursday night in Carolina where he has just looked .... bad.

Is he still not 100 percent from the injury he dealt with in training camp and the preseason? Is he going through the motions now that he probably has the realization that Stanley Cup he was hoping to win here to complete his Hall of Fame resume is not going to happen here? Did he just get old?

Is it all of the above?

Whatever the case, the Penguins have a serious problem here with him right now, and if he was not Erik Karlsson and carrying a $10 million price tag he would have probably already been healthy scratched. Even with all of that it might be worth sitting him for a game. He has been that bad.

Alex Nedeljkovic. The Penguins’ goaltending problems extend well beyond Tristan Jarry. After taking over the starting job late in the 2023-24 season and nearly helping the Penguins steal a playoff spot, Nedeljkovic has not come anywhere close to repeating that performance this season in his new role as the No. 1 goalie.

He has allowed at least three goals in five of his seven appearances, has an .883 save percentage overall for the season and his only two wins — and only two games with less than three goals against — have come against Montreal and Anaheim, two of the worst teams in the entire NHL.

Nedeljkovic might be fine as a backup or as a goalie you turn to in small doses when he gets hot. But he is probably not a player you want playing the majority of your games.

The Penguins’ goaltending as a whole has just been bad. Their .883 save percentage at 5-on-5 is 27th in the NHL, as is their .882 mark in all situations. Given the state of the team’s goaltending the past few years and the lack of a serious attempt to fix it, none of this should be a surprise.