PHOTO COURTESY PITTSBURGH PENGUINS

It ended on Thursday night the way President of Hockey Operations and General Manager Kyle Dubas suspected it might back in October — with the Penguins breaking out the golf clubs while the NHL’s postseason field of 16 prepares for playoff hockey.

It was always destined to be difficult, given the challenges attached to re-tooling the roster while hanging on to the old guard.

The hope was that the Pens would be competitive. But the goal, whether they were competitive or not, was to begin identifying players who would comprise the next wave of talent capable of once again elevating the Pens to Stanley Cup-contending status eventually.

So no one should be surprised about where they ended up, at 34-36-12 — suffering the franchise’s first losing season since 2005-06.

The concerning part was how they got there.

Dubas was able to amass a promising array of draft picks, with youngsters such as Rutger McGroarty and Ville Koivunen emerging like keepers. And there may well be more where they came from marinating at AHL Wilkes-Barre/Scranton as the 2024-25 campaign mercifully comes to a close.

But the just-completed slog, likewise, betrayed all that remains wrong at the NHL level.

This season’s Pens got what they deserved because they couldn’t keep the puck out of their net. That much was confirmed during ESPN’s broadcast of the regular-season finale against the Capitals, when color analyst Kevin Weeks relayed head coach Mike Sullivan’s response when asked what the franchise needed to focus on the most in the offseason:

“A commitment to defense in every single way.”

That’s about much more than goaltending, but the Pens’ goaltending nonetheless needs to be better. Identifying that aspect of the problem is the easy part, that’s been the case beyond just this season. But the identity of the goaltender who will eventually solve the ongoing problem remains a mystery. Whether he’s currently a member of the organization or not, it may take quite a while for this team to become less leaky.

Net-front defense is an ongoing deficiency. The Pens remain too soft in the vicinity of the blue paint in particular and in the defensive end in general. As a result they continue to ask too much from goaltenders who are unable to deliver what’s required under such duress.

An overall lack of the necessary engagement on a night-to-night basis also is a contributing factor. This bunch was never going to be a Cup contender, but it should have at least been more competitive.

A recent example of the Pens finding a way to muster the necessary urgency and attention to detail occurred on April 5 in Dallas (a 5-3 win against a very good Stars team that had everything to play for and was leading the Penguins 3-2 in the third period).

A subsequent follow-up was a 4-1 home-ice loss to Boston on Sunday.

“We had one guy,” Sullivan spewed, referencing goaltender Tristan Jarry, after the no-show effort against the Bruins. “The rest of it, it’s hard to find a positive.”

Neither performance was an outlier. The disparity between the two, sadly, was the Penguins’ 2024-25 signature.

They need better players.

But they also need a better commitment to “playing the right way,” something Sullivan has preached since he’s been here but in recent seasons has too often fallen on deaf ears.

No, not a whole lot was expected this season.

But the 2024-25 Penguins still found a way to underachieve.

Mike Prisuta is the sports anchor/reporter for Randy Baumann and the DVE Morning Show. He’s also the host of the Steelers Radio Network Pregame Show and the color analyst for Robert Morris University men’s hockey broadcasts.