PITTSBURGH — Here's a hot take: The Pittsburgh Penguins could actually be pretty good this season.

Here's a hotter one: Given the pedigree and paychecks of their top eight players or so, plus the pedigree and paycheck of their head coach, they should be pretty good. They do not deserve the benefit of low expectations.

What if their best players simply play to their talent level?

What then?

This team should have made the playoffs comfortably last season and would have if not for a power play that was so hideously tragic that nobody would have blamed coach Mike Sullivan for resigning in disgrace.

It was, in fact, one of the more embarrassing units in franchise history and maybe hockey history given the talent level on hand. The 1983-84 Penguins, the team that lost on purpose to secure Mario Lemieux, the team that finished an 80-game season with 38 points, had a better power play — by five percentage points — than a unit that featured Sidney Crosby, Evgeni Malkin, Jake Guentzel (for several months) and Erik Karlsson.

If the Penguins merely fix that problem, they should be a playoff team. But there's more — and it's all quite realistic.

They need their $27 million goalie to play to his talent level, the level that has earned him two All-Star bids in the past four years. It's not like we have never seen Tristan Jarry play great hockey.

They need their two supremely talented defensemen, one of whom won his third Norris Trophy just 370 days ago, to play like stars that are making a combined $18 million. Why is that unreasonable?

They need another excellent season from Marcus Pettersson, who is as good as any No. 3 defenseman in the Eastern Conference and is in line for a big payday, and they need some semblance of competency from $27 million bust Ryan Graves.

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