It’s scoreboard watching time for the Penguins

All Pittsburgh can do today is watch what happens around the league, and hope for the best

The Pittsburgh Penguins have done their part to get into the playoff race by picking up points in their last nine games (6-0-3) in way to becoming the NHL’s hottest team in the last two weeks. Their opposition has also done more than their fair share to let the Pens back in; Washington is 0-4-2 in their last six games and Philadelphia is 0-5-2 in their last seven.

It’s not Sunday but here is an up-to-date look at the standings.

The margins are razor thin to see five teams within two points of one another. Two of these clubs will qualify for the playoffs, three will have long summers left to stew about the numerous missed opportunities that cut their seasons short.

One interesting perspective is the maximum points these teams can end up with. This shows that the Pens still need to take care of a lot of business in their final four games — and also need to get some help.

Some of this help is bound to happen — none of these teams are likely to end up with their max, which we know with certainty because there are a number of games where they play one another. There’s an absolutely huge game tonight between the Detroit Red Wings and Washington Capitals. The Pens and Red Wings play on Thursday. Later on there’s a PIT/NYI game and a PHI/WSH game left as well.

The one thing that Pittsburgh (and New York and Philadelphia) don’t want to see tonight is overtime between the Caps and Red Wings. If it’s a three-point game tonight, that is damaging to everyone else.

To muddle the waters, the best result for the Pens would be a Capitals regulation win tonight. That pulls Detroit back to the pack, and Pittsburgh could potentially deliver a KO to Red Wing hopes and dreams on Thursday if they also down Detroit.

However, a Red Wing regulation win would be beneficial for the Pens as well, it would serve to knock Washington down a peg and then Pittsburgh would have to do their own dirty work to beat Detroit and reduce the Red Wings’ max points to 92 on Thursday to match their own max total.

Another huge rooting interest tonight for the Pens will be in New York. Unlike the WSH/DET game that has negative implications for the Pens no matter how you look at it (someone is getting two points there), the Pens and their fans will unabashedly in the corner of the New York Rangers in their game against the cross-town rival Islanders.

The Islanders are in the cat bird seat right now, courtesy of a current four-game winning streak that has seen them raise up to third place in the division. But a loss tonight throws them right back into the mixer with all the other Metropolitan teams. Things are so variable that the Capitals could even pass NYI for third place in the Metropolitan tonight, should Washington win tonight and NYI lose in regulation (Washington would have the edge in the first tiebreaker, regulation wins).

Other than Boston, no team has extended games more than NYI, who have played 24 overtime contests this season. They’re not particularly good at it with a 9-15 record after regulation time, but simply surviving for the extra point has been a big help for a team with only 26 regulation wins this year.

Philadelphia is on the road tonight in Montreal. On paper, one would think that an advantageous game for the Flyers to meet up against a bottom-level team with nothing to play for. However, the Flyers have lost to Chicago, Buffalo, Columbus and these same Canadiens during their current losing streak — nothing can be considered a given for them at this point.

Compared to the rest of the competition, it will be easiest for Pittsburgh to stay ahead of Philadelphia at this point. Both PA teams only have four games left, the Pens have one more point AND comfortably hold the tiebreaker. While the PHI/MTL game still matters, it lacks the gravity or importance of NYR/NYI and especially WSH/DET does at the moment.

And while scoreboard watching can be fun, it carries that uncontrollable element with it. The Pens’ easiest path, and ultimately their only path, is going to be about what they can do over their last four games. This chart from HockeyViz illustrates it well:

If Pittsburgh were to go 4-0-0 or 3-0-1 in their final games of the season it will essentially seal the deal and render the out of town scores irrelevant. But it’s a slippery slope from there, even a strong finish of 3-1-0 (or 2-0-2) and picking up six of the remaining points makes for a 79% chance and starts to heavily get into the realm of needing help in the form of other teams losing.

The proposition becomes almost a coin flip (46%), should the Pens go 2-1-1 and end up with 89 points. Prospects become grim and exceedingly unlikely (15%) should the Pens only play .500 hockey (2-2-0 or 1-1-2) and end up with 88 points, which would surely mean leaning on multiple other teams to drop games in order to make 88 points stand up for playoff qualification.

Anything less than that, and the Penguins don’t have a case or a hope at all, which is probably about right. They weren’t good enough early on to fade late and slide into the playoffs, it’s going to require a Herculean effort over the entire last 15ish games to make the playoffs.

The Penguins have been good in the past few weeks, and what might be even better than is they have been incredibly fortunate with scoreboard watching for the games they can’t control. At this point, tonight all eyes turn to Detroit, New York and Montreal to see how many of the out of town scores might break Pittsburgh’s way one more time.