If you had some lingering optimism about the 2024-25 Pittsburgh Penguins, their season-opening 6-0 loss to the New York Rangers was probably quite a punch to the face on Wednesday evening.
Look, it is one game.
It is one game out of 82 games.
It is also just the first game.
You do not want to jump to any irrational conclusions or overreact to one result, especially on a night where 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 score that is so disappointing about the result.