Pittsburgh Penguins head coach Dan Muse was not happy on Saturday night. He was as angry as he has been so far in his brief tenure as the Penguins’ head coach, saying the team needs to be beyond just being
happy with playing better. He had just watched his team lose another overtime game (dropping to an almost incomprehensible 0-5 in games that go beyond regulation so far this season) and go a weekend on home ice where they acquired just one out of a possible four points.
The first game, a 5-0 loss to a very good Minnesota Wild team on Friday night, was a complete no-show performance across the board from everybody involved.
The second game, a 3-2 overtime loss to an overachieving Seattle Kraken team on Saturday night, was another game where they lost a late third period lead, made some small mistakes that led to goals, did not convert enough chances, and still did not quite look crisp as a team.
It was not a good weekend, and when combined with a recent stretch of games that has seen the Penguins go 2-4-3, it has to be incredibly frustrating for the first-year head coach. Especially when a lot of those seven losses were very winnable games, and games where they at times played well enough to win. If the Penguins had just two wins in their five overtime games (still having a losing record in them) they would be 12-6-3 right now and everybody would be feeling a lot better about where they are in the standings and what the team is doing. I also don’t think that’s an outrageously hypothetical “what if.” It is honestly what should be expected in those games.
But they did not do that.
Just like they did not hold a 3-0 lead in Toronto, or protect a third period lead at home against the Los Angeles Kings.
That is a lot of winnable points they have bled away in a short period of time. In an Eastern Conference where almost every team is jumbled up together in one big group in the middle, those missed points are going to prove to be costly.
Entering the week the top team and bottom team in the Eastern Conference are separated by just nine points (compared to a 21-point gap between the top and bottom teams in the Western Conference) while there are 11 teams in the No. 2 through No. 12 spots separated by just four points. An extra two points would literally have the Penguins in the second spot in the East right now.
This week is American Thanksgiving, long considered a good barometer for what teams are and who is going to end up actually making the playoffs. The Penguins enter the week on the outside of that picture, just barely on points percentages, and are again in a situation where they have three winnable games sitting in front of them.
Muse said on Saturday his team needs results and points right now.
There are more opportunities sitting in front of them.
The first of those opportunities comes on Wednesday night, at home, against the Buffalo Sabres. Buffalo, is again, one of the bottom teams in the Eastern Conference even with consecutive big wins against Chicago and Carolina and wins in four of their past five overall. That is a game you want to win, especially at home, in what is one of your biggest home dates of the year annually (the night before Thanksgiving game).
After that, they get a back-to-back situation over the weekend with the Columbus Blue Jackets and Toronto Maple Leafs.
Columbus has a lot of young talent, but has lacked consistency.
Toronto has a lot of injuries and a roster that is completely mid after Auston Matthews, William Nylander and John Tavares. Their lineup is also extremely banged up at the moment, and they enter the week with what is literally the worst record in the Eastern Conference.
The Penguins had them down and out before letting them up in the third period.
I still do not fully know what to think of this current stretch. Is it water finding its level and the Penguins simply regressing back closer to what everybody expected them to be? Perhaps to a point. But you also can not ignore the injuries that have taken Rickard Rakell, Justin Brazeau, Ville Koivunen, Fillip Hallander and Noel Acciari out of the lineup. Not to mention the early season absence of Rutger McGroarty. That is six forwards you were counting on to play relatively big roles this season. That has not only taken some good, productive players out of the lineup, it has also forced a lot of lesser players into the lineup and into bigger roles they should not be playing. Connor Dewar has been outstanding on the fourth line. He is out of place on the first line. Kevin Hayes looks like waiver-wire fodder right now, not somebody that should be playing on the second line.
Getting some of those players back will help. Having some of them likely makes a difference in recent games. But we are going to start getting to a point in the season where teams are going to start separating themselves, in one direction or the other, from the pack in the middle of the standings. By the time the Penguins get some of those players back it might be too late to matter. That is why they need to start collecting points again, and this week is another big opportunity to do so with some winnable games on the standings. None of these next three opponents are higher than 18th in points percentage. None of them are higher than 17th in the NHL in expected goals share. They need to take advantage of these games. They need at least four points. At least.
