It was an ominous beginning.
An utterly predictable one, too.
Their first three games of the season, the Penguins were short-handed 11 times; three of those ended with opposing players celebrating goals.
“Those first couple of games were tough,” center Matt Cullen said.
As the Penguins quietly suspected they might be.
Not because of any major flaws in their scheme or personnel, but because of the large-scale turnover among their penalty-killing forwards after the 2014-15 season.
The likes of Brandon Sutter, Craig Adams and Nick Spaling, to say nothing of defenseman Paul Martin, left the organization, and newcomers such as Cullen, Nick Bonino and Eric Fehr — the latter of whom sat out the first 10 games while recovering from elbow surgery — needed time to develop chemistry and fully absorb the nuances of the system.