Refreshing Penguins notes: Love is in the air, and so is playoff hockey! Don’t you just love spring?
• Ditch the disclaimer: Erik Karlsson is the Penguins’ MVP, and that includes Sidney Crosby. Karlsson put the team on his back in March, shepherding the Penguins to an 8-6-3 record while Crosby missed 10 games, Evgeni Malkin nine. Karlsson had nine goals and 15 assists in 17 games and did what he’s done all season, quarterback the Penguins from the blue line. Karlsson runs the show. He’s the least replaceable, ergo the most valuable. He won’t win his fourth Norris Trophy as the NHL’s best defenseman. But Karlsson should get votes.
• Between Monday’s 8-3 win at the New York Islanders and Tuesday’s 5-1 home win over Detroit, the Penguins scored 10 unanswered goals. Roll over, Mario Lemieux and tell Jaromir Jagr the news. It felt like the early ’90s.
• Tuesday couldn’t have gone better: The Penguins won a crucial head-to-head vs. Detroit, and the Islanders, Columbus, Philadelphia and Ottawa all lost. That’s how you make the playoffs, and the Penguins will.
• These Penguins are flawed, but likeable because they have major heart and guts. The games on Monday and Tuesday felt like play-in games to make the playoffs proper, and the Penguins stood and delivered. (Not that trailing 2-0 and 3-1 at Nassau County didn’t provide anxiety.)
• The goaltending isn’t good enough to win playoff series. But Stuart Skinner won a few of those with Edmonton. Since the Penguins won’t summon 22-year-old Sergei Murashov from Wilkes-Barre/Scranton — as should have happened weeks ago — Skinner is the best bet as No. 1 goalie moving forward. He played well Tuesday, making 22 saves to beat Detroit. Arturs Silovs was all over the place at the Islanders on Monday. Each of the three goals he allowed was shaky.
• The Penguins have allowed three or more goals in 13 of their last 15 games. That’s a one-way ticket to Palookaville come the postseason.
• If the Penguins make the playoffs and don’t get home-ice advantage in the first round, their first two home games figure to conflict with the NFL Draft in Pittsburgh on April 23-25. That is logistically impossible: Hotel rooms, traffic, 700,000 extra people, etc. But the NHL is too stubborn to adjust.
• Perhaps the biggest part of the Penguins’ run to the brink of making the playoffs is scoring depth: 12 players have hit double figures in goals. That helps add up to 263 goals, tied for third-most in the NHL. In the past, the Penguins posting a number like that was based on star power. Not this season.
• Four of those 12 players are in their first season with the team, totaling 79 goals between them. Full credit to president of hockey ops/GM Kyle Dubas. Toronto just fired their GM, by the way. HAW, HAW, HAW, HAW!
• Anthony Mantha has a team-high 30 goals in his first season as a Penguin. He has two surprising attributes: The best move to the backhand this side of Crosby, and an inordinate amount of breakaways for a player who isn’t that fast. Mantha times his runs to the blue line perfectly, arriving when the puck does.
• This will be Mantha’s only season as a Penguin. In free agency, he’s likely to get a five-year deal worth $30 million. The Penguins shouldn’t give that to a 31-year-old who had major knee surgery just 16 months ago, and for whom this career-best season may be an outlier. Enjoy Mantha while you can.
• Ben Kindel is just 18, but has calm on the puck that can’t be taught. Egor Chinakhov, 25, has a burst into space that can’t be taught. The future is arriving.
• When the Penguins get healthy up front, Avery Hayes will likely go back to Wilkes-Barre/Scranton. But in the long term, he’s exactly the kind of bottom-six rat the Penguins need: An agitator with just enough talent. Hayes looks like he’s about to steal your car, and that’s meant in the best possible way.
• Elmer Soderblom’s beatdown of the New York Islanders’ Scott Mayfield on Tuesday illustrated why Muhammad Ali didn’t want to fight 7-foot-2 Wilt Chamberlain back when. Mayfield got held off by the 6-foot-8 Soderblom’s lengthy arms and couldn’t get inside his reach. The result was unexpectedly lopsided.
• When the Hoffman Family of Companies assumes full ownership and control of the Penguins, Lemieux will have a prominent role. As he should. Here’s betting he could still play the power play.