As the Penguins lurch toward a playoff spot in the slightly more good than bad fashion that’s marked their season, it’s time for perspective.
When hostilities commenced in October, the Penguins were thought to be a bottom-five team, the goal being to get a top-five draft pick and select what they don’t have in their system, namely a star forward. (Egor Chinakhov and Ben Kindel are close. But neither is good enough to someday be your top player.)
That plan is dead.
That’s good. Probably.
The Penguins’ unlikely march to the postseason has a host of intriguing sidebars:
• Incredible depth scoring: 12 players with 10 goals or more. The three regular fourth-line forwards have combined for 33 goals. Fill-in fourth-liner Elmer Soderblom has four more, and in just 16 games with Pittsburgh.
• The Penguins score a lot: 280 goals in 78 games, second-most in the NHL. (They need to: The Penguins have conceded 250 times, ninth-worst in the league.)
• Special teams have been haphazard lately, but the power play ranks fourth in the NHL, the penalty-kill seventh. Both have often been a driving force.
• Surviving lengthy stretches without Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin, sometimes both.
• Erik Karlsson’s resurrection as a Norris Trophy-level defenseman at 35.
• With the exception of trading Brett Kulak to Colorado for Sam Girard, every move made by president of hockey ops/GM Kyle Dubas has hit. Not least Anthony Mantha scoring 31 goals and pricing himself out of Pittsburgh.
• In that vein, journeymen defensemen Ryan Shea and Parker Wotherspoon have been revelations. Shea leads the Penguins at plus-25.
• Trading for Chinakhov gets special mention. Columbus being dumb enough to underutilize Chinakhov, then deal him to a Metro Division rival may be the main reason the Penguins finish ahead of the Blue Jackets. Chinakhov isn’t a Ron Francis-type get, but acquiring a star-level 25-year-old scorer is nearly impossible.
• At 18, Kindel’s hockey IQ and calm on the puck is mind-blowing. Taking Kindel 11th in the first round of the latest NHL draft was thought a reach by many, but the Penguins had him pegged in the top four. Full credit to player personnel VP Wes Clark. Kindel’s ceiling is a legit second-line center, 70-ish points. Unless it’s higher. Kindel is serving notice that it might be.
• Dan Muse has been excellent in his first season as an NHL head coach. His defensive structure gets betrayed sometimes. That hurts given the Penguins’ mediocre goaltending. But Muse has made the whole greater than the sum of the parts. Legit rolling four lines and thus saving wear-and-tear on the aging stars is a big part of that. The team has bought in, no small feat for a rookie boss.
Once the playoffs are procured, it’s time to think about winning a series for the first time since 2018.
Who should the Penguins prefer to play?
The only potential first-round foe that would drill them is Tampa Bay. The Lightning are better, have considerable playoff acumen, and Andrei Vasilevskiy vs. (presumably) Stuart Skinner would be a goaltending mismatch. Vasilevskiy is a two-time Stanley Cup winner and the best goalie of his generation.
You’d bet on Carolina, Buffalo or Montreal against the Penguins.
But the Penguins could give each a series.
Carolina is good but predictable, easy to draw a bead on over seven games. Meh goaltending, overrated coaching.
Montreal last won a playoff series in 2021, Buffalo back in 2007. The Canadiens and Sabres are explosive, on the rise, but maybe not ready for prime time.
Neither team has great goaltending. Despite my trepidation about Skinner, he was the No. 1 netminder on an Edmonton team that made the last two Stanley Cup finals. (Skinner is out with a minor eye injury, but won’t miss much time.)
The Penguins are most likely to finish second (maybe third) in the Metro and thus most likely to play Columbus, the New York Islanders or (oh, boy) Philadelphia. Washington is a longshot.
Columbus is a favorable matchup: Roster that’s no better than decent. Goaltending that’s no better than what the Penguins have. The Blue Jackets have lost six in a row.
The Islanders would be difficult. They’re the Penguins’ bogey team, as witnessed in 1975, 1982, 1993 and 2021. Ilya Sorokin is a Vezina Trophy-level goalie, and defenseman Matthew Schaefer is the runaway Rookie of the Year. But the Islanders have lost four straight.
Philadelphia would be frantic. The Flyers have a subpar roster and netminding to match. But coach Rick Tocchet (remember him?) is building something. It’s each team’s biggest rivalry. The Flyers have won two straight, five out of seven.
Washington is a longshot. But Crosby vs. Alexander Ovechkin one more time would be electric, and you’d like the Penguins’ chances. But the Capitals have won four out of six and have decent size and edge.
So, can the Penguins win a playoff series?
First off, they haven’t yet clinched a postseason berth.
Secondly, winning a series would be a bonus given the season’s original expectations.
But why not? As long as you’re playing, you might as well win.