Sunday Standings: Pens on the rise?
A look at how Pittsburgh stacks up against their division after their recent 5-1-0 record
It wasn’t too long ago the Pittsburgh Penguins were spiraling and near the very bottom of the NHL’s standings and points percentage earned. A 5-1-0 run over their last six games hasn’t undone all the damage done a stretch where Pittsburgh won only two of 11 games (going 2-5-3 from Nov. 5-23), but it’s at least raised them up from the absolute dredges of the standings.
With that in mind, let’s take a look at the table this morning in the Metropolitan Division and sweep around the league to see how everyone’s week went.
Washington: The Capitals improve to 6-2-1 since Alex Ovechkin has been out with a broken leg (and 6-0-1 in their last seven). This past week was a 2-0-1 effort, they somewhat surprisingly dropped a 2-1 OT decision to San Jose at home before rebounding to defeat Toronto and Montreal on the road this weekend. The surprise division leaders remain pointed in the right direction through another week and put themselves one week closer to getting Ovechkin back in the lineup to continue his chase of the goal record.
New Jersey: It was a light but successful week for the Devils, who won both of their games (5-1 over the Rangers and then 3-2 against Seattle). New Jersey stays at home for four games in the week ahead (COL, TOR, LA, CHI) and will be looking to stay in firm control of a playoff spot.
Carolina: Only a 1-2-0 week for the Hurricanes, who sandwiched losses (to Seattle and then NYI last night) around a 5-3 win against Colorado. Carolina will look to get back on track with a light schedule next week of two home games that look pretty winnable for them on paper (SJ then OTT). As a usually reliable regular season team, you would expect Carolina to stabilize after a forgettable week and get more points in the standings very soon.
NY Rangers: Tumultuous week in Manhattan, where they finalized the long-pending divorce with now former captain Jacob Trouba by trading to Anaheim and then dished out record-breaking money to goalie Igor Shesterkin to keep him in the fold for the next eight seasons. The exhale was palpable on Friday when the Rangers downed the Penguins to end a stretch of six losses in their prior seven games, do they get the train back on the tracks? The upcoming weekly schedule (SEA, CHI, @BUF, LA) isn’t the most daunting but this is still a team with pressure on them as they await what the next moves may or may not be from their front office.
Philadelphia: We got an episode of “As the Tortorella Turns” yesterday when the volatile coach lashed out against the refs following two tripping penalties his team took against the Bruins. Ironically, neither penalty led to a goal and the Flyers blew a 3-1 lead strictly at ES to end up falling 4-3 in OT to Boston, but hey, might be smarter to keep the focus off that little aspect and put the spotlight somewhere else. Philadelphia continues to live and die by overtime games (five of their last six have gone to extra time) which has been a nice way to pick up a few points along the way, they did blow third period leads in both of their games this week (the other being a 5-4 edge turning into a 7-5 regulation loss to Florida).
Pittsburgh: The Pens went 2-1-0 on the week. They were lucky to eke out a win after Florida roared back on them, then played poorly against the Rangers in a losing effort but recovered with a solid win over Toronto last night. That’s fitting for Pittsburgh, they’re all over the map with no telling how their games might go. Encouragingly there’s been more ups than downs but by no means have they demonstratively turned a corner just yet.
NY Islanders: A very fitting Islander week of going an even 1-1-1 to continue their near even season of 27 points in 28 games. Offensive output continues to be an issue for the lowest scoring team in the division, the Islanders only scored three total goals in their first two games of the week, going 0-1-1 before righting the ship and getting a rare four-goal outburst that was enough to down Carolina yesterday. NYI has only scored four goals in a game twice in their last 14 contests and haven’t scored five goals or more since the third game of the season back in October. In this day and age it’s difficult to win without a lot of scoring, but the Isles remain pesky as ever to avoid excessive regulation losses.
Columbus: The week started well for the Blue Jackets with a 6-3 win over Chicago but they hit struggles in the tough Western Canadian swing, as it seems like so many of the Eastern teams do when out on the road for that trip. Columbus lost all three of their games through CGY, EDM and VAN by a combined 14-5 score to remain at the bottom of the division for another week.
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The Penguins find themselves tied for the final Wild Card spot this morning, believe it or not. It’s a bit misleading to leave that statement at that, being as the standings comes with a huge asterisk that you will likely easily identify in the left most column below.
Pittsburgh has played a handful more games than most teams, so it’s misleading at best to consider them an actual playoff team at this moment. But hey, standings are standings. Taking a playoff perspective (no matter how foolhardy that might seem), this is where the loss to Rangers really stings. Move Pittsburgh up to 30 points today and NYR down to 27 if the result from Friday went the other way and suddenly there would be a lot more to stand on. It’s barely early December, so the playoff picture doesn’t really matter too much even if it’s fun to take a peek now and then at how the division and conference is developing.
The good news for the Pens’ long-range hopes is that all of NYI, Ottawa, Buffalo and Detroit look incredibly tame this season. All of those squads had varying levels of expectations of making a run for a playoff spot but none have been particularly impressive. That there is only one non-playoff team from last season that has made a huge step forward (that of course being NJD) is a big benefit to Pittsburgh. The Pens hopes would be all but over in the Wild Card race if an Atlantic Division mid-level team from last year had made a huge leap this year. Fortunately, as of now, that has not been the case.
The other side of the coin for the bad news is that the Pens have to stay in front of ALL of those Atlantic teams, plus pass one of Tampa (fat chance any time soon considering game differential) and those same Rangers. If NYR continues to stumble and remain with the pack of wild card teams it opens up new possibilities.
Those possibilities, however, remain a long ways off with a ton of work needed to get there. Pittsburgh probably needs to string another 5-1-0 stretch on top of their current recent play in order to make it interesting come the actual mid-season when the teams approach 40 games played. The likelihood of that can be debated — and rightfully cast with a skeptical eye — but the Pens’ recent run of results in the past couple weeks has at least started to get back into the periphery of the conversation for Wild Card instead of keeping a close eye on checking lottery odds.