The week ahead: Time for some home cooking for Penguins

The Pittsburgh Penguins return home for a five-game home stand that starts this week with some huge games on the schedule.

The Pittsburgh Penguins officially start the second half of the 2024-25 season this week, and after a tough road trip that saw them play two of the NHL’s best teams in Florida and Carolina (going 0-1-2 on the trip) they get a chance to return home for the next couple of weeks with five consecutive home games.

Some of them are games they need to win.

Some of them are big challenges.

Some of them are just exciting matchups.

It starts off on Tuesday with one of the games they need to win when they host the Columbus Blue Jackets.

Columbus is in virtually the exact same spot as the Penguins, owning a 17-17-6 record (compared to the Penguins 17-17-7 record) and the exact same .500 points percentage. A Penguins regulation win gives them a three-point lead over Columbus. An overtime loss ties them. A Columbus regulation win puts the Blue Jackets ahead of them.

The Blue Jackets are entering the week playing some pretty solid hockey, going 5-2-1 over their previous seven games. That stretch includes wins over New Jersey, Boston and Carolina.

Defenseman Zach Werenski has been the one big standout for Columbus this season, entering the week with 45 points in 49 games. The only defenseman in the NHL that has outscored him this season is Colorado’s Cale Makar (49 points). He is just 12 points shy of matching his career-high, and the season is only at its halfway point.

After him, forwards Kirill Marchenko (43 points in 40 games) and Sean Monahan (40 points in 40 games) are leading the way.

The one area that has been a big concern for the Blue Jackets — goaltending.

The two teams are 27th and 29th respectively in 5-on-5 save percentage.

The Blue Jackets are also one of the few teams in the NHL this season that actually has a worse team-wide save percentage than the Penguins, entering the week with an .875 all-situations save percentage. That is 31st in the NHL, ahead of only the Philadelphia Flyers. They have used three goalies this season and none of them have a save percentage higher than .890. Even that one belongs to Jet Greaves who has only appeared in four games.

Goal-scoring could be plentiful on this game.

Speaking of plentiful goal-scoring, the Penguins will get one of their biggest challenges of the home schedule on Thursday when Connor McDavid, Leon Draisaitl and the Edmonton Oilers make their yearly trip into Pittsburgh.

Their past three trips into Pittsburgh did not go well for the home team, with the Penguins losing all three games by a combined 16-3 score.

You already know what McDavid and Draisaitl are capable of, but the Oilers as a team are playing their best hockey of the season right now.

Some numbers:

• They are 15-4-1 over their past 20 games, the second-best record in the NHL over that stretch (trailing only the Vegas Golden Knights
• During that time they have a 52.4 percent expected goal share during 5-on-5 play, the eighth-best mark in the league.
• They are scoring 3.04 goals per 60 minutes of 5-on-5 play, the highest mark in the NHL during that stretch.
• Their power play is converting on 30.6 percent of their attempts during that stretch, the third-best mark in the league (the Penguins are one of the two teams ahead of them).
• Their penalty kill is clicking at an 88.1 percent rate during that stretch, which is second-best in the NHL.
• Overall they are allowing just 2.45 goals per game in those games, which is the fourth-best mark in the NHL.

They are cooking, they have owned the Penguins in Pittsburgh recently, and the Penguins have a tendency to struggle with teams that can play that style of hockey.

That is going to be a challenge.

Speaking of challenges, the weekend is going to present a different set of challenges as the Penguins host a back-to-back with the Ottawa Senators and Tampa Bay Lightning,

The Ottawa game is a huge one given that the Senators are one of the teams in that Wild Card chase mess at the bottom of the Eastern Conference playoff picture.

The Penguins enter the week with a slim one-point lead over the Senators for the second Wild Card spot, but Ottawa still has three games in hand. The Senators won the first meeting of the season in overtime a couple of weeks ago.

Senators goalie Linus Ullmark was sensational in that game, but he will not be available in this meeting as he is sidelined week-to-week with a back injury.

On Sunday they host the Lightning in the second part of the back-to-back. The good news there in terms of the schedule is that both teams will be playing the second half of a back-to-back (Tampa Bay plays in New Jersey on Saturday) and both teams will be playing their third-game in four nights. The advantage for the Penguins is that all of their games during that stretch are at home. Tampa Bay will have had travel in all of their games during that stretch (going from Tampa Bay, to New Jersey, to Pittsburgh), including Saturday into Sunday. Even though the Lightning still look like a playoff team — again — and have some serious high-end talent that can take over a game, they are not playing their best hockey of the season at the moment.

They enter the week on a four-game losing streak and having lost five of their past seven games. They also have three tough games before Sunday against Carolina, Boston and New Jersey. Maybe the Penguins can catch them at the right time. They also have a tendency to play pretty well against the Lightning, going 7-2-1 against them in their past 10 games.

Overall, this is a tough week in terms of matchups. There are eight potential points on the table, including two games that are the classic four-point game against Ottawa and Columbus. Those are the two games you really want — and maybe need — to see the Penguins win. If they can split one of the other team between Edmonton and Tampa Bay that would be an extremely successful week.

This five-game home stretch is also important for the Penguins because it is their only five home games of the month of January. They go on a seven-game road trip the rest of the month that includes Buffalo, Washington and a West Coast trip before returning home in early February. Collect the points now while you can.