The heartbreak and realizations inside the Pittsburgh Penguins dressing room Saturday night were palpable. From coach Mike Sullivan’s subtle shift in tense and tone to captain Sidney Crosby’s trailing voice, the loss to the Washington Capitals was a hard punch to the gut.
The fight they’ve waged to soldier forward together and stave off general manager Kyle Dubas’s scythe effectively ended when they mightily failed to earn wins on the five-game homestand. A brief respite of hope after beating Buffalo on Friday was then pancaked by the smothering Washington defensive scheme Saturday.
The goal is to quickly turnaround the team to compete for a Stanley Cup again before Crosby is done. If so, the dirty work…