Penguins face steep climb to playoffs in second half of season

The Pens likely need to collect more than 50 standings points in 42 games to sneak into the Eastern Conference playoff picture.

The 2024-25 season is almost half over.

The final buzzer for Sunday night’s road game against the Carolina Hurricanes will mark the halfway point of the Penguins’ campaign.

What does this team need to do over the back half of the season to snag a playoff spot for the first time in three years?

For the last two campaigns, 92 points has been the marker to guarantee an Eastern Conference Wild Card spot. (The Washington Capitals made it in last season with 91 points, but only thanks to a tiebreaker over the 91-point Detroit Red Wings.)

The playoff cut was higher in 2021-22, when the Caps claimed the second Wild Card spot with 100 points. The New York Rangers’ early collapse is an indication the conference standings won’t be so crowded this spring.

Thanks to Rickard Rakell’s late regulation goal against the Florida Panthers, the Pens collected an overtime point to hit the 40-game mark with a 17-17-6 record, good for 40 points.

They’re going to have to do better than that over the back stretch in order to claim a postseason berth.

The Pens need to spend the back of the season winning at approximately the pace of the New Jersey Devils— a team that heads into Saturday with a 24-14-3 mark— in order to collect enough points to hit the projected cutoff.

As of Friday, The Athletic’s Dom Luszczyszyn projects the Pens finishing the season well short of the playoff bubble with 83 points.

Whether or not the Pens can beat that projection is likely to become clearer by the end of the month. From Jan. 17 to Jan. 29, the Penguins hit the road for a seven-game road trip that takes them up to Buffalo, down to D.C. and then all the way across the country for the perennially-dreaded West Coast swing.

Over that stretch, the Pens will meet with a series of bottom-ten teams including the Sabres, Ducks, Kraken and Sharks. Given the shrinking margin of error for this back half of the season, the Pens likely need to come out of that road trip with a winning record to maintain hope of sneaking in as a Wild Card.