What We Learned: How much patience is too much?

The idea of the Pittsburgh Penguins re-signing Evgeni Malkin, Kris Letang, and Tristan Jarry over the past two summers was that they needed to keep their competitive window open.

This was also the idea behind trading for Erik Karlsson and Reilly Smith, as well as signing Lars Eller and Ryan Graves.

Instead of looking competitive, they are rather frustrating. They're dead-even .500 both at home and on the road, they have an inconceivably bad power play, and even the pom-pom wavers in the local media can't take it anymore.

Just last week, new GM Kyle Dubas gave coach Mike Sullivan a big ol' vote of confidence, and say what you want about Dubas, but he's a guy who seems to give his coaches a pretty long leash despite middling-at-best results. Not that firing Sullivan would necessarily solve many