Power Rankings: Holiday blues sinking once-potent Penguins

Wes Goldstein | January 5, 2010

Generally speaking, teams are supposed to go through a Stanley Cup hangover at the outset of the season. Apparently, no one bothered to tell the Pittsburgh Penguins.

The reigning champions looked poised for a repeat when they began their title defense with a great start, going 11-3 during the first month and taking a 26-11-1 record into the Christmas break. But Pittsburgh has hit the skids since the holiday

While captain Sidney Crosby continues to remain among the league's scoring leaders, the rest of the high-powered offense has dried up lately, particularly last season's scoring champion and playoff MVP Evgeni Malkin. He has been in an extended funk with only five goals in his last 16 games -- three of them coming in one game against Ottawa -- and he is on pace for career-low numbers.

But the Penguins aren't playing well collectively, and they are now riding a season-worst five-game losing streak after dropping a pair of weekend games in the Sunshine State.

"I think right now we think we're good enough to show up and beat whoever we play, and we're not," defenseman Brooks Orpik told reporters after a Saturday night loss in Tampa Bay. "I don't know how good we are to be honest. Early in the season, we got lucky with a lot of games. Maybe it's catching up to us now."

Maybe it is. The Penguins lost again the following night to the Panthers despite taking a 2-0 lead before the game was 11 minutes old and firing 48 shots on goal. But Pittsburgh let Florida back in by allowing a late first-period goal, and then had no answer when the flood gates opened and the Panthers skated to a 6-2 win.

"I don't think we felt outplayed, but we made some mistakes," Crosby said. "In other games we make mistakes and they don't go in, now they do so. That's something we have to work our way through.