In the last Sunday Standings just after Christmas, the situation wasn’t looking so rosy for the Penguins. A 1-5-4 stretch had completely given up all the early-season work the team did to position themselves near the top of the standings and throw them towards the bottom end of the shuffle. With a mind towards Buffalo’s then seven-game winning streak (which eventually grew to 10 before they lost over the weekend), some foreshadowing went along with a line:
Needless to say, about now would be a very
fortuitous time to string together a long winning streak
The Penguins apparently took that to heart and won all five of their games coming out of the Christmas break to change the nature of their positioning. For now at least. This included probably their two most complete games of the season in the last week when they defeated Carolina 5-1 last week and later only allowed 12 shots in a 4-1 victory in Detroit on Saturday. Undoubtedly, it was a great time for Pittsburgh to rack up all the points possible.
Just like that, Pittsburgh has shot up the charts as most teams have met or surpasses the midway point of the 82-game schedule. The NHL season is a roller coaster like that, filled with the lowest of lows — like all those blown leads and losses in December, followed by a drastic turnaround coming out of the break. Here’s how the East looks today:
Thanks to that late push, the Penguins hit the middle of the season on statistical pace for 98 points. From preseason expectations, that’s impressive. Their position is in no way secure, being as the Pens are as close from first-place Carolina as they are to 15th place NYR, with both extremes four points in either direction. That outlook is a little extreme given the games in hand situation, but remains a pretty accurate talking point in the notion that there is absolutely no breathing room out there this time of year.
The troubling outlook, as of today, is that several talented teams are below Pittsburgh in the standings (Washington, New Jersey, Florida, Ottawa). The recent winning streak has put the Pens in-line with the other major surprise teams of the first-half, NYI and Philadelphia. Other variable teams that go on similar hot and cold stretches, like Boston and Buffalo, are right in the mix too.
With every team in the East at at least a .523 points% (an 86-point pace) the margin of error is non-existent, for the Penguins and also for everyone else. The standings these days are like standing in quicksand and the picture will surely be fluid and bound to change on a weekly, if not daily basis. That’s shaping up to be simply the nature of the season; string together a couple of wins and a team suddenly is right in the thick of the pack, or even towards the top. Hit a tough stretch and that goes away in a hurry to get shuffled down towards the bottom of the pack as the rest of the conference continues to relentlessly chip away with a point or two in almost every game that they play.
As far as the Penguins go, they have no choice but to continue to taking the season one chunk at a time. The next bit starts on Thursday, kicking off a stretch of nine games in 15 days, and 15 games overall until the Olympic break that starts for them on February 5th. There are four Western Conference opponents in the upcoming segment and several key Eastern matchups with New Jersey, Boston, Tampa, Philadelphia and Columbus on the docket in the near future. There’s still 41 games to go and while nothing meets the absolute definition of ‘must win’ with so much runway left, the importance of all of these games will be absolutely paramount.
That Olympic break will create a major and natural touch point to take stock in how the situation is sorted out a month from now. In the meantime, the division and conference will keep rolling through the waves as the teams keep sorting through a wild season with so many performing so well.
The Pens have been at both ends of the spectrum in the last month, in some ways that’s because they’re a team capable of variable performances. They’re hardly alone in that boat, much of the league has alternated between hot and cold stretches that has had them just about all end up in the 45-52 point zone at the halfway point of the season. That sets up an intense and high-stakes second half where every team can reasonably have some confidence and optimism that they can make a run towards the playoffs with the natural other side of the coin where many of those teams are bound for disappointing endings once it all sorts out.
