With the benefit of 17 years in the NHL, Erik Karlsson has seen more bad stretches over his career than Reed Richards.
So the wily defenseman understands the value of levity in trying times such as the Pittsburgh Penguins are enduring at the moment via a five-game losing streak (0-1-4).
After another come-from-ahead 5-4 loss at home to the Utah Mammoth on Sunday, in which the hosts failed to win despite opening the third period with a three-goal lead, the Penguins’ dressing room opened to media and a surge of reporters, camera operators and interns made their way to the back center of the space occupied by captain Sidney Crosby, who was ready to answer queries about his team’s latest defensive failures.
When a reporter peeled away from that standing room-only group and turned attention to Karlsson’s less-crowded real estate on the right flank, the blue-liner offered an impish quip.
“Too crowded over there?” Karlsson said with a smirk.
To be certain, the Penguins’ woes aren’t a laughing matter, with the exception of schadenfreude enthusiasts. But they aren’t a cause to begin penning an obituary either.
“We all know the repercussions that it can bring after it’s all said and done,” Karlsson said. “But then, at the same time, we can’t be too afraid of what’s going to happen in the future and what ifs. We’ve got to stay a little bit more in the moment. We’ve got to go back a little bit to a game-to-game basis and not look too far ahead and not worry about what could be.
“Just play our game because I think we’ve shown for the majority of the season so far that when we play the way that we want to, we’re a capable team of playing and beating anyone.”
The Penguins last beat a team on Dec. 4, when they claimed a 4-3 road win against a strong Tampa Bay Lightning squad. But even in that triumph, there were some premonitions of what was to come in their next five games.
Against Tampa Bay, the Penguins entered the third period with a 3-1 lead but gave up a pair of goals to forward Brandon Hagel. A goal by forward Evgeni Malkin late in regulation (17:17 of the third period) wound up being the winning score, but only because a league-initiated video review wiped out a would-be score by Lightning forward Nikita Kucherov at 19:05 of the final frame.
— EN Videos (@ENVideos19) December 5, 2025
Two nights later, the Penguins lost on the road in a shootout to the powerful Dallas Stars, 3-2. They again opened the third period with a lead (2-1) before Stars defenseman Miro Heiskanen tied it late at the 18:11 mark.
— EN Videos (@ENVideos19) December 8, 2025
Falling in such a fashion to one of the NHL’s top teams might have been the high-water mark of this losing streak. If nothing else, it was not nearly as soul-crushing as their 4-3 shootout loss at home to the Anaheim Ducks on Dec. 9.
In that calamity, the Penguins took a lead late via a power-play goal by forward Anthony Mantha at 16:05 of the third period and seemed set to earn a win. And that appeared to be a formality when they were granted a power-play opportunity with only 18 seconds left in regulation.
Yet, the short-handed Ducks were able to force overtime when rookie forward Beckett Sennecke scored a tying goal with one-tenth of a second remaining, thanks, in part, to Karlsson inadvertently deflecting the puck into his own net.
Easily the most “normal” segment of this skid came Thursday in a 4-2 home loss to the Montreal Canadiens. The Penguins never had a lead and never seemed like a threat to win that game. They just showed up at the building and simply got thumped.
That said, they did look off-kilter from the opening of the game, partially because of a half-hour delay to the opening faceoff as a result of a vehicular accident on I-279 that wrangled traffic from the north suburbs, where most of the players and staffers live.
Friday seemed like it could offer some normalcy as they were scheduled to merely practice in Cranberry but that wasn’t to be as management made a franchise-altering trade by dealing starting goaltender Tristan Jarry to the Edmonton Oilers.
By Saturday, the Penguins appeared to have everything under control as they raced out to a 5-1 lead in the first 45:25 of regulation against the San Jose Sharks at home. But the visitors managed to dice up the hosts’ defense for four goals in the final 12:27 of the third period before winning 6-5 in overtime.
Can we please all take a moment to appreciate @sharkvoice.
We are so, so lucky to have an all-time great calling these unforgettable moments ???? pic.twitter.com/Yry1jjEqBA
— Sharks on NBCS (@NBCSSharks) December 14, 2025
The Penguins didn’t have much time to think about that cluster-bumble as the Mammoth were in town Sunday. And while the script was a little different — the Penguins tied the score late to force overtime after giving up a three-goal lead to enter the third period — the result — and the astonishment — was the same when Mammoth forward Dylan Guenther scored in overtime.
— EN Videos (@ENVideos19) December 15, 2025
“You would have thought after (Saturday), that it would change a little bit,” Karlsson said. “But it didn’t. Even though I think they’re completely different situations, we’re still up three and let up four within (the first 7:06 of the third period of Sunday’s game).
“Those are the things that we can’t let happen.”
But they have, repeatedly as of late.
And it comes in stark contrast to how the team operated in the early stages of the season, particularly in October when the Penguins raced out to an 8-2-2 mark. Much of that success was punctuated by protecting late leads. Not coincidentally, two of their three shutouts this season occurred in October.
Since the calendar flipped to November, the team is 6-6-7 with only one shutout over that stretch.
“Situations like this, sometimes confidence plays a big role, and, obviously, right now, we’re lacking that,” Karlsson said. “We’ve got to find a way quickly to get that back. Because early on in the season, I think we did a great job of playing with a lead. Somehow, we have kind of fallen away from that.
“We’re playing against the best players in the world, and we’ve got to remember that we’re part of that group and we’re more than capable to play with anyone.”
Note: Penguins defenseman Brett Kulak and goaltender Stuart Skinner were formally added to the active roster on Monday after being acquired via trade with the Edmonton Oilers on Friday. Both players are Canadian nationals and needed their immigration status processed. In a corresponding transaction, rookie goaltender Sergei Murashov was assigned to Wilkes-Barre/Scranton of the American Hockey League. … The Penguins had a scheduled day off Monday.
