Crosby pulls Pens’ season out of free fall, can they make run for playoffs?

The last month has been a wild ride for the Pittsburgh Penguins

Even when they’re bad, the Penguins are never boring. Something that should be as routine as a fan giveaway turned into international news when the team’s bobbleheads got stolen and held for ransom, for cryin’ out loud!

That little fiasco was a welcome distraction from what was happening on the ice. In the haze of the Jake Guentzel trade, Pittsburgh lost four games in a one week span from March 3-10th by a combined score of 21-2. (They did mix in a victory over Columbus in the middle, because even at their worst, if the history of the Blue Jackets has taught us anything it’s that the Pens are almost always going to beat them, no matter the circumstances).

Once again, that’s 21 to 2 over four losses. The low point was undoubtedly the day Guentzel was traded, March 7th. Guentzel was told by GM Kyle Dubas the trade was imminent and had said his goodbyes to his teammates prior to the game. A wholly uninterested Penguin team still had to play that night, and dropped a 6-0 game where it looked like zero people on the ice wanted to be there or exerted any sort of effort resembling a professional-quality performance.

The competitive portion of the Pens’ season appeared to be long over. The team was nearing double digits back in the playoff race. Their will to play was zapped. A top 10 pick - the first for the team since 2012 - appeared to be the most likely possibility.

It was jarring that things could get so dis-shelved, and that a Sidney Crosby led team could look so disfunctional, punchless, hopeless and flat out sad. The past few years haven’t been wonderful, but no Penguin team has sunk that low in Crosby’s 19 seasons.

But the crazy thing about sports is that things are rarely as good as they seem when times are going well, and they’re also never as bad it looks when the arrow is pointing down. The Penguins didn’t go onto lose their last 15 games by five or six goals every night. They found a way to move past the Guentzel move and work towards what they can control. One step at a time, to round out this paragraph of cliches.

Crosby has helped to stabilize the team, along with stellar performances lately from Alex Nedeljkovic, Bryan Rust and Evgeni Malkin. That’s led to Pittsburgh going 4-0-2 in the last six games — and shockingly somehow just three points behind those same Capitals who beat them like a drum a few weeks ago. Pittsburgh is also only four points back of Philadelphia, who themselves have only won two of their last 10 games at this point to hold the door open for the playoff pack not pulling away from the rest of the field.

That’s the sunny side, the other perspective is time is running out. Pittsburgh only has seven more games left and while 3-4 points doesn’t sound like a lot, it is a pretty steep mountain to make up with only a handful of games to go. There’s also the fact that Detroit and the NY Islanders are hanging around and are legitimate competition that the Pens have to deal with as well. The Isles’ have the benefit of being in the same spot as Pittsburgh but with two more points to their name right now.

HockeyViz puts some color to the situation of what it will take.

The Pens can max out with 93 points this season, but that would require going 7-0-0 in the games to go. Unlikely, which gives that bar a nice white shading.

This model projects the most likely landing spots to be 85, 87 or 89 points, which probably means 3-4 more wins and maybe an OTL thrown in along the way. Going 4-2-1 down the stretch would be pretty impressive — but picking up nine more points only means a 9% chance of the playoffs, as of now.

In order to really have a shot, Pittsburgh needs to pickup 11-14 more points. That means 5-1-1 or better in the last seven, and having to win 5-6 of their remaining games to have a realistic shot.

They have some incredible matchups and opportunities coming up as well.

Moneypuck has tomorrow night’s game as a “now or never” type for Pittsburgh. The Pens won’t be mathematically eliminated with a loss tomorrow, but they might as well be. A win keeps the door open for one more game to keep building on, as they have been for the last handful.

Considering how dire, dull and just plain not fun that things were around the Penguins just a few weeks ago, this stretch run is shaping up to be way more exciting than anyone could have guessed. Teams like the Flyers, Red Wings and Capitals slumping away has kept the door open long enough for the Penguins to get their stuff together (to the lowest degree possible) and still be able to play important games deep into the season.

The rally the Penguins have begun is still shaky enough that the next regulation loss will serve to almost close the curtain on realistically competing, but each win stokes the team’s confidence and ability to create more magic in the next game. Two wins over the Rangers and Devils this week have set Pittsburgh up for another epic battle with the Caps and will provide a meaningful April game after all. Considering where this team was mentally and in the standings just a few weeks ago, that’s a shocking enough development on its own, no matter how the games play out from here.