When will the Penguins top line start making an impact?

If there was any positive to take out of the Pittsburgh Penguins game against the Chicago Blackhawks on Tuesday night, it is the fact Sidney Crosby scored two goals. They were not only his first two goals of the season, they were quite honestly the first time that the captain really made a noticeable impact on a game this season.

It has not only been a shockingly quiet start for him, it has been a disturbingly quiet start for the entire first line. Even after Bryan Rust was put back into his usual spot alongside Crosby and Rickard Rakell, the line just isn’t moving the needle.

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Objectively speaking, it’s been the Penguins’ least productive line combination this season, and it really hasn’t been close.

• Crosby, Rakell and Rust have played 35 minutes together so far this season across four games.

• The Penguins are being outscored by a 3-2 margin in those minutes, and getting absolutely crushed defensively despite that trio getting the heaviest offensive zone start usage on the team (23 offensive zone starts for that group; only three defensive zone starts).

• When none of those three are on the ice together, the Penguins are outscoring teams by a 10-6 margin, while their expected goal share nearly doubles, going from 34.9 percent up to 59.4 percent.

Individually, Crosby had zero goals and two assists in his first six games before scoring the two in Chicago.

Rakell has zero goals and only two assists in his first seven games.

Rust has two goals in four games.

In the cases of Crosby and Rakell, slow starts to a season are not something that is totally out of the ordinary.

This isn’t even the worst seven-game start to a season for either player in their careers. It’s not even Rakell’s worst start as a Penguins player.

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Crosby had one goal in seven games to open his season two years ago. In 2021-22 he had two points in seven games. He had three points early in 2015-16 through seven games.

Sometimes it takes these guys a little bit to get rolling.

At least in Crosby’s case, I am not quite ready to say he has completely lost it offensively.

Having said that, these guys are 39, 34 and 33 years old. There can not be an older top line anywhere in the NHL, and while Crosby might still have some offensive juice to his game that is just waiting to be unlocked this season, there is going to come a point where both Rust and Rakell do start to slow down. Every player ages differently, and every “decline” portion of a career is going to look differently. A declining Crosby is still going to be really productive because he’s starting from a much higher level and is a superior talent. When an all-time great starts to slow down they’re still going to put up a lot of points. They might go from 100 or 90 points to 60 or 70 points. Still useful. Still productive. When a second-tier player starts to decline, that looks a lot different just based on where they’re starting from.

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It’s also why I wrote back in the summer that I feel like teams probably were not as eager to trade for players like Rakell and Rust given their ages and the term remaining on their deals. At some point they’re going to lose a little bit, and when they lose a little bit it’s a big problem.

Are we at that point yet?

It’s too soon to tell.

But what concerns me more than the lack of actual goal production from that trio, is the fact they are also just simply getting outplayed and not taking advantage of their situations. The Penguins are doing everything they can to put them into offensive spot, and they are not only not scoring, they are giving up way more than they are generating from a chance perspective.

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It seems like every time they are on the ice they are pinned back in their own zone and on their heels defending.

And it’s usually not going well.

The results aren’t great. Neither is the process.

The only time the Crosby-Rakell duo looked good, and produced good results, was over the first two-plus games when they had Nicholas Robertson on their wing.

Just look at how much better that trio was (small sample size warning) vs. the other versions of that top line (also small sample size warning).

It creates a couple of interesting questions and situations.

I get why the Penguins went back to the old trusted formula up front. It has worked well in the past, and all three players have a track record of success. You don’t want to overreact to early season noise and small sample sizes. There is a chance, and maybe even a good chance, they get it together and start producing more.

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But even if that happens, that line has had some increasingly hard-to-ignore defensive issues over the past few years that are getting more concerning.

Are you going to get enough offense from them to make up for that?

The other question: Do you ever give Robertson a chance on that line again? That game against Winnipeg, and specifically that turnover from Robertson that led to a goal against, seemed to be the only margin for error he had in that spot.

On one hand, the Robertson-Blake Lizotte-Connor Dewar line has been absolutely sensational in the few games they have played together. They are outplaying every line they go up against, and are doing so in some of the toughest minutes a line could get. They are also getting more ice-time with each passing game. It might be the fourth line on the lineup sheet, but over the past two games there has been very little difference in terms of how many minutes each line is getting. In a couple of those games, the Robertson-Lizotte-Dewar line was actually third out of the four lines in terms of 5-on-5 minutes.

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If it is working, and it is producing results, do you really want to break that up?

But on the other hand, is it more important to have a good fourth line, or is it more important to try and give your top line a spark?

How much longer do you wait? Will the top-line break through and start producing more and give the Penguins the type of balance and depth that made them so good a year ago?

That brings up an interesting point I saw my good friend Dan Hopper make about a week ago: The narrative around the 2025-26 Penguins was that Sidney Crosby dragged a bad roster into the playoffs, willing them back into contention. It made for a good narrative, but it was not close to the reality of the situation that was actually unfolding on the ice. Crosby was simply a really good player, on a really good team, that had a lot of really good depth. The Penguins’ play when Crosby was not on the ice, and especially when he was out of the lineup entirely, illustrated that.

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Crosby had better, more impactful years than last year and it didn’t produce a playoff result because the rest of the team wasn’t any good.

Last year’s team was pretty good, whether it was intended to be or not. That was the difference between making the playoffs and not making the playoffs.

That’s the new reality that you have to expect with a 39-year-old No. 1 center and captain. He might still be really good. But he’s not going to carry them the way he used to.

But they still need him, and his line, to be good to make it all work given the minutes they are still getting. So far, they have not been getting that from them. Right now it is arguably one of the things that is holding them back the most.

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The Robertson line has been really good. The Kindel line has been really good. The Malkin line has been a little up-and-down, but for the most part, has been very solid.

The first line has simply been the weakness.

Getting that line going, whether through patience and letting them work through their early slumps, or by shaking things back up and giving them a different look, has to be a priority right now.