Yesterday morning, as I was getting dressed, I reached into the top drawer. That’s the drawer that contains all my Penguins shirts, so naturally, it’s overflowing.

I rummaged around in there for a while, before pulling out a shirt that was about halfway through the pile. It was my Jake Guentzel name and number shirt. What are the chances?

That was the clean version of a question I kept asking myself last night, as the Penguins were murdered 6-0 at the hands of the visiting Washington Capitals. It was, by performance standards, by far the worst game I had ever seen in person.

I had decided to go to this game as my odd sort of farewell to several players on this current Penguins roster. I’m a young guy, so seeing this Penguins team in “sell” mode is new to me. I consider myself incredibly lucky to be able to say that sentence.

While the future of several players on this team remained up in the air Thursday night, we got the answer to the biggest piece of the puzzle. At the original time of this trade, I did not know the full details. I do now, and you can find some info on all those guys here (and I would really encourage you to do so)

A fan favorite and star player is now headed south to Carolina, a team that visits Pittsburgh in just two weeks. What a game that will be.

We knew ahead of time that Michael Bunting is part of the return coming back to the Penguins. The 29-year old was held out of the Hurricanes’ lineup last night for “trade related reasons”, per Carolina’s official PR account.

That fragment of news broke as I wore my Guentzel jersey, for presumably the last time, at PPG Paints Arena.

There was a weird feeling around the arena all night. Writers who get the chance to go to every game said that about Tuesday night’s game as well, but as an unaffiliated guy who can’t get a gig anywhere, this was my first chance to experience that.

It felt like everyone within the building knew the inevitable was coming, we were all just waiting for it to actually take place. The usher behind me at the game muttered that Guentzel was already gone when his face appeared on the pre-game video.

Lots of Guentzel jerseys were spotted around the crowd, and while that is often the case at Penguins games, they carried a different weight this time around.

The game almost felt secondary to the bigger picture: the Guentzel trade, and all the dominos that would (hopefully) fall right after. And if there was ever a game that should take a backseat, let it be this one.

Washington took a high-sticking penalty just 12 seconds into the game, but that ended up only benefitting them when Tom Wilson scored, unassisted and shorthanded to take a 1-0 lead. His howls rang through a disappointed but not surprised building.

That would be the theme of the night.

The Capitals scored 4 times in the second period, chasing Tristan Jarry from the net and subjecting Alex Nedeljkovic to a similar torture.

Several Caps had firsts on the night: defenseman Nick Jensen scored his first of the season when he made it 3-0 Washington, and Ivan Miroshnichenko scored his first goal in the NHL to welcome Nedeljkovic to the hockey game.

It was a deflating night no matter where you looked. The team had obviously come out flat, but this was worse than any bad night at the rink.

This was a team that played unfocused, with so many things going through their minds and in the background, losing one of their friends and one of the team’s best players.

At least, that’s what embattled head coach Mike Sullivan said after the game.

“Jake means an awful lot to these guys, and when you win championships together, there’s a certain bond there that’s hard to put into words.

“These guys are human,” Sullivan continued. “And, as much as we preach ‘stay on task here and focus’, obviously I have to believe that some of that had an impact on what went on the ice tonight. It’s not an excuse, we still need to do our jobs, that’s our business, that’s what we signed up for.”

I do believe the notion that this trade has some outside effect on the way the team played. Trades like this aren’t supposed to happen. The Sidney Crosby effect has made the Penguins buyers, not sellers, at every trade deadline for well over a decade.

Players do not come to Pittsburgh expecting to be this far out of the race by early March. Kyle Dubas had traded for Erik freaking Karlsson in August.

This was not supposed to happen.

But instead, here we are in March. Fans watched their team die on the ice, while Dubas began the work of putting this era of Penguins hockey to bed from his press box.

Regardless of how things go in July (barring a Jake return, but please don’t get my hopes up), this era of Penguins hockey is dead. Whether the Penguins re-tool and go all in again next year, or falter towards the bottom of the league, selling off the best winger that Sidney Crosby has ever had is all the proof you need that this era is done.

It was an era filled with success. Sixteen straight playoff appearances. Three Stanley Cups. It doesn’t make the downfall hurt any less in town.

(Featured photo by Pamela Smith/Getty Images)