Mark Madden: The Penguins control their own destiny, but are they playing playoff hockey?

Whatever good happens to the Pittsburgh Penguins at season’s end, nobody but Sidney Crosby truly will deserve.

Very rarely can a win be an utter travesty, but Thursday’s debacle of a 6-5 overtime victory over Detroit at PPG Paints Arena fits that description. That said, the Penguins winning in three-on-three OT is a miracle worthy of loaves and fishes. (Primanti Bros. should run a promotion.)

Everything the Penguins do wrong, they did wrong. It’s a playbook of which Matt Canada would be proud.

They gave up the lead three times, including a two-goal margin in the third period: The Red Wings cut the Penguins’ edge to 5-4 with 7 minutes, 4 seconds left in regulation, then made it 5-5 just 117 seconds later.

The Penguins scored to go ahead 1-0, then allowed a goal 59 seconds later.

They gave up goals in the last minute of periods twice, including one to (gag) ex-Penguin Jeff Petry.

All of the above just keeps happening. It’s too typical.

Erik Karlsson is a human hand grenade. He stupidly abandoned the front of the net on Detroit’s fourth goal, then got beat on a bad pinch for the Red Wings’ fifth goal.

It’s nice that Karlsson scored in OT to win the game. On a ticket of $11.5 million, it’s about time he makes a contribution both tangible and memorable.

But, really, it’s a crock. The arsonist put out his own fire.

Karlsson is a skating contradiction. He’s a three-time winner of the Norris Trophy as the NHL’s best defenseman, but he’s got absolutely no idea how to play defense.

Why is Karlsson pinching with a one-goal lead and just over five minutes left? Is that what the coaches want? (It probably is.)

Also from the Penguins’ greatest hits LP: They were 0 for 2 on the power play and got no five-on-five goals from the bottom six. Although Jeff Carter did net a shortie. Another Festivus miracle!

Here’s something new: Goalie Alex Nedeljkovic’s clock might be striking midnight. The Penguins too often left him out to dry, sure, but Nedeljkovic failed to register the big saves he had been making. Five goals on 30 shots against is unacceptable. That said, the net belongs to him. After 10 straight starts, there’s no going back to Tristan Jarry.

The Penguins are currently in a playoff spot and control their own destiny.

But what is that destiny?

They play the furthest thing from playoff hockey. These Penguins in the postseason would be the proverbial eight wasted days.

Director of hockey ops/GM Kyle Dubas and owners Fenway Sports Group need to take a hard look at coach Mike Sullivan. They won’t, but they should.

The Penguins play as they prefer, not as they need to. They cling to speed but are no longer very fast. They stink on the power play and in three-on-three overtime. (They don’t practice the latter.) They don’t pay enough attention to score, situation or foe, as evidenced by the third period vs. Detroit. They are stubbornness drenched in ego.

But the Penguins absolutely don’t see it like that. They see it as “playing the right way.” Their way.

A Plan B occasionally crops up, like when the Penguins hit all their marks defensively in a 4-1 win at Washington on April 4. But not often enough and certainly not late in Thursday’s game vs. Detroit.

One guy can play exactly as the Penguins prefer. That’s Crosby. He’s carrying them to a degree that defies description. He’s got eight goals and 12 assists during the Penguins’ 10-game points streak. Crosby is electric.

Consider Thursday’s win: one goal and two assists. His helper in OT was the 1,000th assist of his career. Crosby is now the 10th-leading scorer in NHL history. He’s the first player to enter the top 10 since Jaromir Jagr in 2008.

That makes you forget all the bad stuff about the Penguins. (But it’s still there.)

If this subpar version of the Penguins makes the playoffs on Crosby’s back, he’s the NHL’s MVP. Given context, it’s not even close.

But he’s got no chance of getting it. Nothing he’s not used to.

As the Penguins ride their 7-0-3 run to a maybe playoff berth, exiting the NHL’s bottom 10 to give San Jose the first-round pick sent there in the Karlsson trade this year instead of next year, remember the danger attached: Despite the fun involved with a furious finish and perhaps making the postseason, what’s happened this season isn’t nearly good enough. Big change is required.