from Dave Molinari of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette,

Their 2-1 loss to Carolina — one of the ever-shrinking number of teams behind them in the Eastern Conference standings — Saturday night at Consol Energy Center stretched their winless streak to 0-4-1 and left the Penguins stranded far outside the top eight teams in the conference.

If the season ended today — and it would be completely understandable if the Penguins wished it would — they would fail to qualify for the playoffs for the first time since 2006.

Emphatically.

The issue isn’t their willingness to work or compete, at least most of the time, but their consistent inability to generate goals. Consider this: Although Hurricanes left winger Jeff Skinner didn’t get a goal Saturday night, he has scored six in the past five games.

So have the Penguins.

And while coach Mike Sullivan said, “I see signs of improvement in a lot of areas,” their record isn’t one of them. They are 0-4 since Sullivan replaced Mike Johnston as coach eight days ago and have slipped to 15-14-3.

“We can’t feel sorry for ourselves,” defenseman Brian Dumoulin said. “We just have to keep going forward.”

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