If you had any lingering optimism about the 2024-25 Pittsburgh Penguins, their season-opening 6-0 loss to the New York Rangers on Wednesday night was probably a big slap in the face.

Look, it’s one game.

It’s one game out of 82 games.

It’s also just the first game.

You don’t want to jump to conclusions or overreact to one result, especially on a night when the Western Conference champion Edmonton Oilers lost by the exact same score (to a worse team, I might add).

But it is not necessarily the loss or the result that is so disappointing about the result.

You’re going to lose games, and you’re going to play games that are absolute stinkers. It happens.

The problem is the way the Penguins lost, as they did lookedand the way every concern that you could possibly have for this team was on full display from start to finish. Even worse, it also raised some issues that may not have been concerns.

Basically everything the Penguins have done wrong or struggled with over the last four or five years, they did on Wednesday night.

Any questions and “ifs” you may have had? They all had negative answers.

Questionable goal scoring? Oh buddy, did Tristan Jarry lay an egg in this game from the start? You knew it had to be a bad omen for the match when Rangers’ very first shot on target found the back of the net. When Alexis Lafrenfiere scored to make it 2-0, with an innocent-looking shot that probably should have been a routine save, you knew this wasn’t going to be your night. It wasn’t an encouraging start for the one player on the roster likely to face the most pressure to perform.

Defensive zone breakdowns? Oh, they were everywhere and resulted in tons of Rangers strangers. Every Penguins player was on the ice for at least one goal against, while every player outside of Rickard Rakell was on the ice for a 5-on-5 goal against. It was a failure of equal opportunity across the board.

A short goal against? Of course there was, allowing the power play to pick up where it left off a year ago.

Ryan Graves looks lost and collapses while on the ice? That happened all night, as he finished with a 33 percent shot attempt share and was on the ice for two goals against.

What was perhaps most concerning to me is that the Penguins couldn’t even control the pace of the game or have any territorial advantage. Even a year ago, you could at least point to their 5-on-5 play as an encouraging sign, as they were able to outscore their opponents at times. You might squint and say to yourself: “well, if they could just correct the power play and get a few saves, their 5-on-5 play is still pretty good!”

On Wednesday, the Rangers took a sledgehammer across the board.

They were sharper, smoother, faster, more skilled, better defensively, had better goal-scoring ability and seemed only a level or two above the Penguins.

To be fair, the Rangers are an excellent team. They are a Stanley Cup contender and have a lot of high-end skills. The Penguins aren’t going to play teams this good every night, especially teams that play this flawlessly. But it was still alarming to see how far ahead the Rangers were of the Penguins.

The Rangers looked like a team on a mission playing a meaningful game.

The Penguins looked like a team going through the motions during a preseason game.

The scoreboard ultimately reflected that.

That doesn’t mean things can’t change. Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin will still have big matches. There are a lot of new faces on the roster who are still adjusting to each other and a new system.

But then again… everything just looked the same as we’ve been seeing for a few years. Only a little worse. There is time to fix that. There are big reasons to think things can be better. It was just a terrible showing to open the season.

It’s not encouraging by any means because until this team does something to change the narrative around them, the story will remain exactly the same as it was. Wednesday did nothing to address these concerns. Whether it’s one game or not.