PITTSBURGH — Many assumed the schedule would eventually catch up with the Pittsburgh Penguins, and maybe it has.

The bigger problem is that the Penguins’ recent performance has caught up with them.

Four games after his return to the lineup from injury, the Penguins’ captain is shouldering some of the blame.

Another night of shaky goaltending and poor play in their own territory buried the Penguins against a team that rarely needs much help, as the Colorado Avalanche toyed with the Penguins most of the evening in a 6-2 decision at PPG Paints Arena on Tuesday.

Nathan MacKinnon scored a highlight-reel goal to put Colorado ahead early, and, although the Penguins had the better of the play for stretches, they were never a threat to win.

One of MacKinnon’s closest friends, Sidney Crosby, recorded at least a point for the fourth straight game since he returned from a knee injury sustained in the Olympics. But he wasn’t pleased with his own performance in the defensive zone, where the Penguins are struggling mightily.

“These last two games, we’ve given up way too much,” Crosby said. “These are quality teams (Carolina and Colorado). We just need to find a way to tighten up defensively right now, especially against teams like that.”

The Penguins have given up 48 goals in their past 11 games, an average of 4.36 goals per game. This is an enormous and urgent problem for the Penguins, and nobody is more aware of this than Crosby.

“It’s all of us,” Crosby said, explaining that goaltenders and defensemen aren’t the only players responsible for goals against. “We have got to make sure that we are defending better. We have to understand who we are playing against.”

They were playing against the Avalanche, who have enjoyed the best record in the NHL essentially all season.

Colorado struck for four goals in the first period, effectively ending the game a half an hour after it began.

The Penguins were not good in their own territory, were not intense enough defensively and found themselves out of position throughout.

“Tonight, I was guilty of it, too,” Crosby said. “I lose my check, they put one in from in front of the net. In those areas, we have to defend better. We just have to. I’ve got to lead the way on that.”

Goaltender Arturs Silovs stopped only 24 of 29 shots and played perhaps his worst game of the season. While Colorado is, of course, a gifted offensive team and took advantage of numerous defensive lapses, Silovs was anything but sharp. His rebound control was especially bad.

So, now what?

The Penguins have a number of very significant problems.

• Their special teams, a strength all season, are currently betraying them. Colorado received a power-play goal from Martin Necas while the Penguins were unable to convert with the advantage. They also were unable to score with a two-man advantage in the third period.

• Their goaltending is suddenly in a rut. The duo of Silovs and Stuart Skinner has been perfectly fine most of the time, but right now, it isn’t. Silovs endured a very poor outing against Colorado.

• Their blue line continues to struggle, cough up pucks in the defensive zone and find itself out of position on a regular basis.

• Their woes with goalie interference challenges are reaching biblical proportions.

Ten postgame observations

• Let’s start with the goaltender interference situation.

The Penguins were trailing 4-1 in the second period when Justin Brazeau scored what felt like a very large goal. Colorado challenged the play because Brazeau made contact with goaltender Scott Wedgewood (who was outstanding all night).

Colorado won the challenge, sending Dan Muse into a tirade on the bench and eliciting the most anger heard from a PPG Paints Arena crowd all season.

The numbers: The Penguins, who are 0-for-8 on challenges this season, have also seen their opponents win four out of five challenges. So, when there’s been a challenge this season, they’ve come out on the losing end a rather remarkable 92 percent of the time.

I asked Crosby about this.

“Yeah,” he said, when asked if he was surprised by the ruling. “You’d think with 10 (challenges), you’d get one right. I watch a lot of hockey. A lot of time you don’t know which way they’re going to go. You think we’d get one out of 10. But the bottom line is we have to play better.”

• I also spoke privately with Erik Karlsson about the play. He’s been in the middle of a couple of recent goalie interference rulings.

He made two points, both of which I think were pretty relevant.

Karlsson noted that Devon Toews appeared to lean into Brazeau, pushing him toward Wedgewood. If you watch the play closely, you’ll see this.

The Penguins have their 2nd goal waved off for goaltender interference 😬 pic.twitter.com/aDAlZaJ8pv

— Gino Hard (@GinoHard_) March 25, 2026

Also, Karlsson said the play was called a goal on the ice, and substantial evidence should exist to overturn the call on the ice.

It’s hard to argue with his points. The Penguins feel like the league has a bias against them regarding these challenges — many in the locker room and the organization have told me this — and although that might seem silly on the surface, the numbers speak for themselves. Given how outspoken the Penguins have been about the goalie interference challenges — Kyle Dubas spoke passionately about it last month and the organization printed the goalie interference rulebook (rule 69.1) and passed it out to media covering Saturday’s game — I do wonder if the league is in no mood to help them out.

No, I don’t think the NHL is anti-Penguins. But I do think people who make such decisions are capable of being petty with a capital P.

• Parker Wotherspoon rarely makes mistakes, but he tried to get cute when MacKinnon was sniffing the puck. Bad, bad decision.

MacKinnon’s goal, however, was an absolute thing of beauty. I don’t say this often, but that was a Mario Lemieux goal.

What a player.

• I really didn’t like Silovs’ game. The book on him has always been simple: He struggles with shots from the point. Tracking pucks from a distance has long been his biggest issue.

Many in the organization believe he has made strides in that area this season. But those strides were not evident against the Avalanche.

The Penguins have a team defense problem, yes. But I think they might also have a goaltending problem.

Is it Sergei Murashov time? I’m going to keep bringing it up if the Penguins are going to keep allowing five goals per game. No, it’s not all the fault of the current goaltenders. But the season will soon be on the line, and if neither goalie is going to play at an acceptable level — forget about stealing a game — Murashov needs to be considered.

• I’m aware of the final score and, yes, the Avalanche are much better than the Penguins. They might well be the class of the NHL. Yet … the Penguins weren’t really outplayed in this game. No, really. They were the better team for most of the first period, and for significant stretches.

The goaltending difference in this game was vast, and the Penguins simply had a couple of breakdowns in their own zone that cost them, to say nothing of their special teams issues.

• Egor Chinakhov and Rickard Rakell scored the Penguins’ goals, which was noteworthy simply because I thought they were by far the two best Penguins forwards in this game.

They were everywhere.

Chinakhov, in particular, played an excellent game.

• I’m not sure why Ville Koivunen is in the lineup and Rutger McGroarty isn’t. McGroarty is a better player who can still help you win games even if he’s not scoring.

I can’t say the same from Koivunen, given what I’ve seen of his game.

• Crosby has 5 points in four games since his return. That’s a testament to his greatness. The truly great players know how to put up points even when they aren’t at their best.

And Crosby isn’t at his best right now. He’s not playing poorly, but he’s a bit out of sorts. Crosby will come around. He always does. But the Penguins need that to happen quickly.

• Evgeni Malkin didn’t play because of an injury. He is being listed as day to day with the injury. He was seen shaking his hand in the second period against Carolina on Sunday.

• The Penguins received great news on the scoreboard despite Columbus’ win. Both the Islanders and the Bruins lost at home. So, too, did the Red Wings. All of those games finished in regulation.

In the end, it wasn’t a disastrous night for the Penguins.

But if they don’t figure out how to prevent the puck from going into their net, it’s going to be a disastrous conclusion to what has been a storybook season.