The Penguins had to fear that something like this was possible.

That their offensive output might well decline, especially early in the season, after they lost Marian Hossa and Ryan Malone to free agency, and Sergei Gonchar and Ryan Whitney to injury.

After they came out of training camp with seven forwards -- half of the total on their major league roster -- who never had skated a regular-season shift for them.

Still, they probably didn't anticipate that they would enter their game against Philadelphia at 7:38 p.m. today at Mellon Arena having scored two goals in the previous two games. They were held to two goals in a two-game span just once, Jan. 18-19, all of last season.

It's no surprise that they lost both of those games -- 3-1 to Ottawa in Sweden Oct. 5 and 2-1, in overtime, to New Jersey Tuesday -- or that they'll continue to sputter unless they find a way to generate more scoring.

"It's always tough to win [when scoring] one goal," goalie Marc-Andre Fleury said. "But we know from the past that we can score goals."

It's true that the Penguins manufactured 240 of them, the seventh-highest total in the NHL and an average of 2.93 per game, in 2007-08. But a few more troubling stat-based realities have emerged three games into this season. Consider:

• Evgeni Malkin, with a goal and two assists, is the only Penguins player averaging a point per game.

• Sidney Crosby does not have a multiple-point game.

• Miroslav Satan, who inherited Hossa's spot on Crosby's right side, has three shots on goal. Which is three more than third-line winger Matt Cooke.

• The power play, which scored on 20.4 percent of its chances last season, is 2 for 18, a conversion rate of 11.1 percent.

• Fleury is tied for eighth place in the team scoring race. Not because of how his puckhandling has improved, but because only seven of his teammates have made it onto the score sheet for anything other than a rule violation.

Coach Michel Therrien allowed yesterday that he is considering reconfiguring his forward lines for tonight, although he did not commit to doing so. He won't have a choice, however, if right winger Petr Sykora, who missed the first three games because of a groin injury, pronounces himself ready to play.

Sykora made it through practice yesterday, which was relatively short but featured some intense skating and physical drills, with no apparent difficulty -- "It felt pretty good," he said -- then said he would decide after the game-day skate today whether he'll be in uniform against the Flyers.

"If he's OK to play, he'll play," Therrien said.

If Sykora plays, he presumably would bump Tyler Kennedy from his spot on the right side of the No. 2 line with Malkin and Jordan Staal. That line played together at times last season, which distinguishes it from the other units the Penguins could deploy tonight.

But Crosby, who has had Satan on his right side and Pascal Dupuis or Ruslan Fedotenko on the left, believes the lack of familiarity among linemates is not a major concern.

"It's more about making good decisions," he said. "It doesn't matter who's playing with who. You have to make the right decisions out there."

Satan, conversely, said he still is adjusting to having Crosby as his center, trying to learn where he should be and when he should expect the puck to come his way.

"I'm learning every game," he said. "I feel like I'm getting there, to understand how to adjust and be more effective on his line.

"It's going to take some time. Hopefully, we can get this kind of period behind us as quickly as possible."

He seems confident that will happen. And, more important, that the Penguins will begin to generate goals with a bit more regularity before much longer.

"It's only a few games," Satan said. "I don't think I'm concerned. This team has enough very good players and they're eventually going to break out."

NOTES -- Therrien posted a list of the players guilty of turnovers in the New Jersey game. Malkin had a team-high 11. ... Darryl Sydor, used on left wing against New Jersey, practiced as a defenseman. ... Therrien said he made "battle drills" a significant part of the workout because he's concerned about how many one-on-one confrontations his team has been losing. "X's and O's are 50 percent of the game, and that 50 percent of the game is important," Therrien said. "The other 50 percent is heart and soul. We can't just rely on X's and O's."