How long can they continue this, and what do they do if they do continue it?
The Pittsburgh Penguins win over the Los Angeles Kings on Tuesday night seemed like a pretty big one for a couple of reasons. It not only improved them to 7-2-1 over their past 10 games and brought them somewhat closer to the playoff picture, it also brought them back to .500 (in the NHL’s goofy world at least) and was another impressive win over a really good team. Los Angeles is no joke, and the Penguins not only came away with two points against them, they hung with them and played a really strong game despite not having one of their best defenders (Marcus Pettersson) in the lineup.
It was a gutsy win, and a well-earned win.
That win, along with their improved play over the past few weeks, leads me to a couple of questions that I think are worth at least exploring.
The first — when do you start believing that maybe this team can keep this season interesting for a while?
What else do they have to do, and for how long do they have to do it?
Realistically speaking, this does not strike me as a playoff team. I did not expect them to make the playoffs at the start of the season, and there are enough flaws and shortcomings throughout the roster that I am not sure they can sustain this current level of play over a full 82 game season.
Having said that, the recent turnaround in play is legitimate. They are not just scraping by and stealing wins. They are playing good hockey.
Over the past 10 games their 5-on-5 goal share is over 53 percent, putting them 13th in the NHL.
Their 5-on-5 expected goal share is over 54 percent, putting them eighth in the NHL.
Their scoring chance and high-danger scoring chance numbers are also in the top-10 among all teams over that same stretch.
They have also defended significantly better, allowing just 2.34 expected goals per 60 minutes (11th best in the NHL),
Those games have also come against primarily playoff level competition.
We asked this question before, but is this real improvement or is it just the type of random hot streak you tend to see even from bad teams over the course of a season?
Honestly, I think it’s somewhere in between. In typical Mike Sullivan-Penguins form, there are a lot of underlying numbers that suggest this team has had no trouble generating chances and offense all season. Even before this stretch of games. Their expected goals for, expected goals shares and scoring chances numbers are all among the best in the league for the full season, and not just a recent 10-game sampling. They have been doing it all season.
The problem has been finishing (as it has been for a few years now) and defending.
Both are improving.
For me, I think it comes down to what I said about two weeks ago. Now that the Penguins were able to get through that gauntlet portion of their schedule, things kind of soften up here a little bit through the end of the year.
Five of the next six games are against Nashville, the New York Islanders (two times), Philadelphia and Detroit.
Win the majority of those games.
Win them convincingly.
Outplay them, keep defending well, keep generating chances the way you have been, and keep stacking points.
If you go into the new year something like 18-16-5, or 19-15-5, or 18-15-6, or something similar to that.... That’s at least keeping your attention.
That is at least keeping you in it. That is at least giving you reason to watch.
If that happens, and the longer it goes on, and if you keep staying within striking distance of a playoff spot, it is going to lead to questions about what the Penguins do at the trade deadline and whether or not they move more veterans and pending free agents.
The answer to that question is probably easy — it is not going to change much of anything.
They are probably not going to be buyers in the traditional sense that we are used to the Penguins being.
Marcus Pettersson is not going to be a Penguin in March.
Anthony Beauvillier probably will not be, either.
Drew O’Connor will probably be playing somewhere else.
The Penguins started down that path a year ago when they traded Jake Guentzel, continued on it when they only signed short-term players in the offseason, and continued it even further they when they traded Lars Eller earlier in the season.
What I would not hate, however, is if they took an approach similar to the one Washington took at the deadline a couple of years ago when they were clear sellers, sent away pending UFA’s and players with value for future assets, and then immediately turned around and used some of those future assets to add younger NHL players under team control.
Maybe you get a first-round pick back for Marcus Pettersson. Then maybe instead of holding onto what is almost certainly going to be a pick in the 22-32 range, you flip it for somebody else that can help immediately and over the next three-five years.
You are still keeping an eye on the future. You are still thinking longer-term. But you are not totally dismantling everything and going down what could be a never-ending path of perpetual rebuilding.
Either way, the recent stretch of play has definitely made the Penguins more interesting in the short-term.
