Sunday Standings: Penguins need some help in final week of the season

Last night’s loss will hit the Pens hard

The Penguins’ 10 game point streak ended with a thud on Saturday night in a loss to the Boston Bruins. Combined with wins by Detroit, Washington and Philadelphia elsewhere around the league made for Pittsburgh to slip from entering the day in the second Wild Card spot to suddenly down in fifth place in that chase.

The loss against Boston may prove to be the devastating blow to Pittsburgh’s season, but there are still a few games left to play. The Red Wings and Capitals have opened the door to the Pens earlier this week with some losses, and if Pittsburgh is to sneak into the playoffs, they’re going to need a little more help.

If the season was 85 or 90 game, the Penguins might have been better off in their quests to catch and surpass the middle part of the conference. Same for starting their run prior to late March. However, neither of those things happened and the Pens have to lay in the bed that they’ve made through the course of a season where their power play has cost them numerous points in the standings that would have come in handy now.

The bad news for Pittsburgh is the Islanders got it in gear at the same time as them. What once was two paths into the playoffs (via third in the division or the wild card) has seen that first avenue close off. The only way for the Pens to catch NYI at this point would be for the Islanders to lose both of their remaining games in regulation AND for Pittsburgh to win both of their final two games.

That leaves just the WC spot as available, with a battle for four teams seeing who can out-last the others. It looked like the Flyers were on their way to playing themselves completely out of the picture but a last stand of a current two-game winning streak has brought them back into contention.

The other bad news for the Pens is their hot goalie is no more. The team was determined to ride Alex Nedeljkovic into the ground with 11 straight starts, but had to keep playing the hot hand. After showing signs in the last week of the cracks forming, Nedeljkovic’s remarkable run came to a halt last night against Boston. Runs of hot play like that always have to end, and a major reason the Pens are playing meaningful games this late in the season is through Nedeljkovic’s contributions. But with the clock hitting midnight and his proverbial carriage turning back into the pumpkin, it’s a good question right now how and if Pittsburgh can make it over the finish line with two wins in the last two games to do their part.

The results were devastating. The Pens’ playoff chances on the HockeyViz model were sitting at 60.0% yesterday morning. Due to the results all going against Pittsburgh, that’s down to 22.2% today.

Just like that, at the snap of a finger, so much of the good work and progress the Pens made was erased. That next regulation loss was likely always going to sting, and boy it sure did.

Remaining schedule

The Penguins play Nashville at home on Monday, then NYI on the road on Wednesday to wrap things up. It’s looking increasingly likely that the Islanders will have little to nothing to play for and have a playoff spot locked up before the final game, which is quite the dramatic turn of events for them.

Washington plays Boston at home on Monday and then on the road in Philly on Tuesday to complete their season series. The Pens will have to be hoping that the Bruins can at least repay them by playing well and taking down the Caps.

The Red Wings have a home-and-home on Monday and Tuesday with Montreal to complete their season series. Montreal has nothing to play for this season as a team and have lost five out of their last six games down the stretch.

Strange things have already happened, with all of the Pens, Caps and Red Wings being in a playoff position in the past few days — and all have lost games to fall out of a playoff spot recently. It’s not terribly glamorous as these teams try to scrape towards the 90 points that will somehow be good enough to make the playoffs this season.

There will only be a few days and games left to see who can remain there when it counts.