from Jason Mackey of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette,

As Penguins players funneled out of the cramped visitors’ dressing room here, chucking equipment bags onto a cart without anyone uttering a single syllable, Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin sat a few feet from one another, heads down, their frustration not hard to detect.

“It’s not easy,” Malkin said. “It’s a tough situation.”

“It’s not a great feeling,” Crosby continued. “We have to find a way to get out of it.”

The escape plan for the Penguins’ current funk could take on any number of forms and might soon require a heavy equipment operator, but at this point it’s impossible to ignore that there’s a large hole developing after what transpired at KeyBank Center, the Penguins blowing another third-period lead and suffering a 6-3 loss to the Sabres.

It extended Pittsburgh’s losing streak to six, something that has happened only one other time in the Mike Sullivan Era (Feb. 20-29, 2020). Furthermore, it’s the third time the Penguins have lost when leading after two periods in the past 17 days, already matching their total from the 2021-22 season. It’s the third time a Sullivan-coached team coughed up five-plus goals in the third period.

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