Plenty of coaches, in both amateur and professional environments, have at one point or another preached to their players the necessity of moving past losses quickly.

Reporters have inevitably heard some version of the spiel, too.

“Things didn’t go our way tonight, but it’s on to the next one.”

Whether coach Mike Sullivan had such a message to the Pittsburgh Penguins following their lopsided loss to the Florida Panthers on Wednesday night at PPG Paints Arena is known only to himself plus the club’s staff and players.

If there was indeed a postgame address he delivered after Florida left town with a 5-2 win, it almost certainly wasn’t as G-rated as above.

Speaking with members of the media following the game, Sullivan admitted he did not have the most thorough of evaluations right off the bat.

The Penguins found themselves trailing 4-0 in the second period, with Florida’s goals coming in an 8-minute, 34-second span.

The Panthers’s initial two goals came 34 seconds apart after what would have been the first goal of the game, scored on the power play by Rickard Rakell, was reviewed and disallowed due to Lars Eller illegally touching the puck with a high stick at the crease.

35 points in his last 21 games... Matthew Tkachuk (@TKACHUKycheese_) is cooking. ????‍????

????: @NHL_on_TNT & @SportsonMax ➡️ https://t.co/W9mpYG1lMO pic.twitter.com/EAqFaX3U3Z

— NHL (@NHL) February 15, 2024

Florida goal!

Scored by Jonah Gadjovich with 14:58 remaining in the 2nd period.

Assisted by Brandon Montour and Kevin Stenlund.

Pittsburgh: 0Florida: 2#FLAvsPIT #LetsGoPens #TimeToHunt pic.twitter.com/fddSbllXzM

— NHL Goals (@nhl_goal_bot) February 15, 2024

“This one’s a tough one for me to assess coming off the bench,” Sullivan said. “Usually, I’ve got a pretty good feel for how the game was played. It wasn’t like we were under siege or anything. We just gave up some untimely goals.”

Even before puck drop, the Penguins’ proximity to a postseason position had become more distant of late, thanks to consecutive losses in regulation to Minnesota and Winnipeg on Friday and Saturday.

Riding a three-game losing streak, the prospect of missing the playoffs for the second straight season, which has not happened in Pittsburgh since 2003-04 and 2005-06 (the 2004-05 campaign was canceled due to a lockout) appears ominously relevant.

As deflating as their loss to Florida was, for the Penguins, there quite literally is no time to dwell on it.

Wednesday marked the front end of another back-to-back clip of contests, with the team catching a flight postgame to Chicago, where they play the Blackhawks on Thursday evening at the United Center.

“I think it’s a good thing we’ve got a game right tomorrow,” said defenseman Marcus Pettersson. “Got to bounce back. We’re in such a dogfight right now that every game matters. We can’t stop and feel sorry for ourselves. … We can’t dwell on it. We’ve got another one tomorrow and we need those points.”

Through Wednesday’s games, the Penguins (23-20-7) are 12th in the Eastern Conference with 53 points, 11 points away from third place in the Metropolitan Division and seven behind the final wild-card spot in the East.

For the remainder of the regular season, the Penguins have four more blocks of back-to-back games, three of which are in March.

Through 15 games in back-to-back sets this season, the Penguins are 9-5-1, including Wednesday’s loss.

On the tail end of their back-to-backs to date, they are 6-1, with coaches and players alike hoping to add another tally to that win column in Thursday’s contest with the Blackhawks.

All that said, following their red eye flight to Chicago, the Penguins expressed an understanding of the increasing desperation of their situation, with a heightened sense of urgency increasingly required each night.

“Right now, we have to realize the position that we’re in (and) not be standing still, deer in the headlight – we have to go get it,” alternate captain Kris Letang said. “We’ll need everybody. We’ll need emotion in every single game. It doesn’t matter who we’re facing. Every single point is going to be important. Tonight was an uneventful night (that) I think we kind of fell asleep in.”

Whether or not the Penguins can follow through on their self-proclaimed need to start accruing as many points as possible will begin to become apparent Thursday night against Chicago (14-36-3), the NHL’s worst team.

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