PITTSBURGH — It sounds like an angry fan take, but it happens to be the correct and sensible take: The Penguins need to strip this thing to the studs and start over.

The jig is up. Stop pretending to be half-contender, half-rebuilder. Stop trying to be like the Steelers, who are unnaturally attempting to flatline forever, just above .500, barely exceeding chronically low expectations, with no hope of a championship.

Have we not learned our lessons? Every single one of those Super Bowl trophies, every single one of those Stanley Cups, was born of spending hard time at the bottom. That is the natural order of things.

The Penguins didn't even mean to hit bottom this time, but here they are. So why not stay and reap the benefits? It sure beats life in the mushy middle.

It's over, folks. Elvis has left the building. The Penguins' Big Three era felt like it officially ended Monday night in a quiet, painfully symbolic loss to the pitiful San Jose Sharks, in a city where Sidney Crosby once raised the Cup.

Have you checked the standings? The Penguins have played 52 games and have won precisely 14 of them in regulation. Fourteen of 52.

In terms of points percentage, these are the worst teams in the NHL:

1.) Sharks: 0.68

2.) Blackhawks: 0.74

3.) Sabres 0.86

4.) Kraken 0.90

5.) Penguins 0.92

Even more startling is the list of worst goal differentials:

1.) Sharks: minus-57

2.) Penguins: minus-40

3.) Blackhawks: minus-39

To clarify, for those in the back: THE PENGUINS HAVE A WORSE GOAL DIFFERENTIAL THAN THE CHICAGO BLACKHAWKS AND THE BUFFALO SABRES — AND IT'S 25 GOALS WORSE THAN THE SABRES!

The time to launch a soft rebuild was years ago, when stars such as Evgeni Malkin and Kris Letang held enormous market value. The Penguins chose to keep the band together, which is fine, but now they are left with only painful options, saddled as they are with aging players and albatross contracts.

The powers that be at Fenway Sports Group face a critical decision:

Do they rage against the dying of the light and continue to try to live in two worlds? Do they really want their team to stage another fraudulent, wasted run to the fringe of wild card contention, the way it did last year — the way the Steelers seemingly do every year — when everybody knows they have no chance to win a championship?

Do they want to keep a prized asset such as winger Rickard Rakell, even though he likely will never be more marketable than right now?

Or will they embrace their current plight by solidifying it, by ordering Kyle Dubas to go scorched earth?

From this vantage point, the path seems clear. Start over. Dubas last week rejected reports of a pending fire sale. It's not his choice. His bosses should make him enact exactly that. Everything must go, be it before the March 7 trade deadline or this offseason.

Well, not everything. Crosby should obviously get to choose his fate. He has more than earned that right, and every indication is that he wants to finish his career here. Certainly, nothing will happen at this deadline.

Did Crosby take his latest hometown-discount deal on the understanding that Dubas would try to contend? Well, Dubas did try. He failed. Crosby has to see that. How could he blame FSG if it wanted to raze the roster at this point?

I could actually see Crosby and the fan base getting energized around a group of young, hungry players over the next few years. Then add pieces around them as the NHL cap rises.

Anything beats this.

Dubas should begin with the obvious — trading defenseman Marcus Pettersson. That seems like a foregone conclusion. Rakell should be next. He might be the Penguins' most marketable asset. This team has no business retaining a soon-to-be 32-year-old winger who could fetch them a nice return and perhaps be attached to one of their albatross contracts (may I interest you in a gently used Ryan Graves, or perhaps an irretrievably broken Tristan Jarry?).

After that, Dubas should approach 30-something players who have some form of contract control. Players such as Letang, Erik Karlsson and Bryan Rust. He should tell them the Penguins are basically waving the white flag on this season and might not be good again for a while. He should offer them an out.

I'm fully aware that moving such contracts is a daunting challenge, but, man, Penguins GMs sure do get creative when they want to acquire players. Mountains had to be moved to bring in the likes of Karlsson and, in Jim Rutherford's case, Derick Brassard and others. Could we get just as wild and creative when we're trying to move on from aging players and bad contracts? Retain salary. Ask the impossible. Turn every stone. No idea is off the table.

Might the old riverboat gambler himself, Rutherford, be open for business in an effort to jump start his struggling Vancouver Canucks? Would he have any interest in old pals Rust, Letang or Evgeni Malkin? Would Malkin want another crack at the Cup playing for Rick Tocchet? I have no idea, but I'd sure find out — and I'd continue all these pursuits into the offseason.

If the Hockey Gods could speak to the Penguins at this critical moment in franchise history, I'd imagine their message as something like this:

Breathe deeply. Be where you are. You have been here before. Do not try to be what you are not. The Football Gods tell us of a team in your town disobeying the laws of the universe. Do not be like them. We have blessed you with untold fame and fortune for nearly 20 years, and now we offer the blessing of badness, rather than a boring life in the middle. Live there. Know that what expands must contract. Be humble and contract — and you shall expand again one day.

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