Tim Benz: Penguins' weekend on center stage shows how bad things have gotten

In the not-too-distant past, a pre-Thanksgiving mini-bye for the Steelers would’ve been the perfect time for many Pittsburgh sports fans to shelve their NFL obsessions and take in a little Penguins hockey for a few days.

Not only were the Steelers off this past weekend because of their Thursday night game against the Browns, but the rest of the AFC North was quiet too. Pitt’s football team is fading fast, and I think it’s safe to say that the Pirates aren’t going to be in the thick of the Juan Soto sweepstakes.

Perfect timing for a Friday-Saturday Pens homestand, followed by the annual Thanksgiving-Eve-party-game that the organization throws for its fans every year.

But that wasn’t the case this weekend. All the temporary Steelers lull did for Pittsburgh sports fans was force them to take a longer look at the state of the Penguins and realize how badly they stink.

I mean, they are truly rotten. They’ve lost eight of their past 10 games. With only 18 points through 23 games, the team is buried in last place of the Metropolitan Division with the NHL’s worst goal differential.

The two latest embarrassments on home ice were a 6-1 loss to the 8-10-3 Utah Hockey Club and a 4-1 beating from Winnipeg on a night when Sidney Crosby felt the need to fight Jets leading scorer Kyle Connor just to get some life in the team.

It was the hockey metaphor for Crosby holding a piece of glass under the nose of the rest of the roster to see if it was still breathing.

Fenway Sports Group has plenty to be concerned about when it comes to its hockey investment. The star players are aging. They’ve hitched their wagon to a coach that can’t seem to reach his skaters anymore. The goaltending is a mess, the farm system is still thin. The salary cap is tight.

And yet, the most pressing issue for the franchise is that it appears to be running out of its most important commodity.

Nostalgia.

Sure, there are some flashback bobblehead doll nights remaining on the calendar. Giveaways for such trinkets in the image of Jaromir Jagr, Phil Kessel, Max Talbot and Patric Hornqvist remain on the 2024-25 schedule.

Maybe they could wedge in a triple-bobblehead doll giveaway before the season is done, as the Pirates did that one time with Zach Duke, Ryan Doumit and Chris Duffy. On April 17, to close the season when Washington is in town, they can give away one bobblehead with all three guys acquired in the Jagr trade: Kris Beech, Ross Lupaschuk and Michal Sivek.

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But as far as on ice — chances to remind the fans of what their current players used to be — those opportunities are running thin.

Sidney Crosby has already scored his 600th goal. Evgeni Malkin scored his 500th. Kris Letang got his 1,000th game last year and is still 52 points away from 800. Marc-Andre Fleury blew through PPG Paints Arena with Minnesota one last time … again.

No, seriously, we mean it this time.

It might be a little while before another big kumbaya kind of celebration, which, at this point, is what the organization does best.

It no longer wins (six straight years without a playoff-round win). It’s not drafting, developing or trading particularly well. Team-building has a long way to go.

So, sell the past in an effort to distract people from looking at the future or thinking about the present. At least there is a recent past with a great deal of success for this franchise to steer into.

The front office has to sell something. Days of the automatic sellout at PPG Paints Arena are gone. The club was down to 15,232 (announced) on a Friday night to host the Jets, the NHL’s best team, with Crosby on the cusp of 600.

But it’s growing more and more distant by the year. I’m not talking about the 1991-92 Stanley Cup teams, either. I’m talking about any team that actually advanced to the second round of the playoffs — or qualified for them at all in the first place.

See you at Danton Heinen bobblehead doll night next year.

The Thanksgiving Eve game against Vancouver on Wednesday ought to be a hit, though. A turkey-and-beer-fueled haze is probably the best way to take in this team. Then it’s back to the second level of sports consciousness through an extended weekend of gorging on football.

At this point, that’s probably the best place for the Penguins to be.