Jason Zucker calls out his team after another ugly loss.

Zucker not happy with the way things have been going.

HockeyFeed
HockeyFeed
Published 4 years ago
Jason Zucker calls out his team after another ugly loss.
Gene J. Puskar / AP

Earlier this month Pittsburgh Penguins general manager Jim Rutherford pulled the trigger on a big trade that sent the Penguins first round pick, defensive prospect  Calen Addison and much maligned forward Alex Galchenyuk to the Minnesota Wild in exchange for one of the Wild's top forwards in Jason Zucker. Thus far at least you would be hard pressed to argue that the trade has been anything other than a resounding success for the Penguins with Zucker recording 5 goals and 2 assists in just 9 games since joining the Pens, but unfortunately in spite of his strong play the results have not always translated to points for the Penguins.

On Friday night the Penguins faced off against the Anaheim Ducks, one of the worst performing teams in the National Hockey League this season, and the expectation coming into this one was that the Penguins would secure the all important victory and continue their march towards the 2020 Stanley Cup Playoffs. Instead the Penguins coughed up a big loss to the Ducks, a loss that allowed their bitter rivals the Philadelphia Flyers to leapfrog them in the standings after they defeated the Rangers by a comfortable margin on Friday night.

It marked the 4th loss for the Penguins in just 5 games, 3 of which came against teams that are currently well out of a playoff position, and that level of play simply won't be good enough if the Penguins expect to get into the postseason this year in what has been a very tight and very competitive race. The aforementioned Zucker, in spite of being one of the newest members on the Penguins roster, was quick to call out his team's performance after another disappointing loss. Zucker was quick to acknowledge that the Penguins must turn things around if they are to continue to live up to the expectations of their fans base, and more importantly their own expectations as well.

"Absolutely," Jason Zucker said as per DK Pittsburgh Sports. "We have high expectations for ourselves. We have to stop the bleeding here at some point."

In spite of the fact that he has been a solid producer for the Penguins since joining the team Zucker admitted that the recent string of losses has had a psychological impact on him, one that may very well become pervasive in the Penguins locker room if it has not already.

"I've gripped my stick a little bit tight a couple of times," he said.

The Penguins will get another chance to right the ship on Saturday when they face another of the NHL's struggling teams, this time in the form of the San Jose Sharks. It will likely prove to be a critical game on the calendar, one that the Penguins should be expected to win, and the Penguins simply can no longer afford to lose points to what are relatively bad teams in the context of the 2019 - 2020 NHL regular season.

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