Kingerski: Yeah, the Penguins Could Do Some Damage

The Pittsburgh Penguins are a .500 hockey team, and over the first two months of the season, they flirted with disaster more than Molly Hatchet.

And despite still being outside of a playoff spot, the Penguins are shaping up to be a team that could do some damage in the Eastern Conference, even after losing to the New Jersey Devils Saturday night.

No joke.

In fact, how they played against New Jersey was just another lesson learned for a team that is proving capable of learning from their mistakes (unlike recent seasons). Of course, the Penguins’ ability to make waves in the conference is in part because of the extreme mediocrity of the worst crop of teams in a league since the original XFL.

But there are also a few reasons why the Penguins have a chance to do something unexpected.

Everything starts with Sidney Crosby. He gives the Penguins a puncher’s chance against any team and would do so in any playoff series. Remember when most people picked the New York Rangers to win the 2022 Round One series in five? If not for a perfect storm of bad calls, missed calls, and a Jacob Trouba elbow, the Penguins would have won that series in five games with a third-string goalie.

It was the Crosby effect. Just get him to the dance.

2) Defense, Erik Karlsson

A significant factor in the turnaround has been the defense. Just a month ago, Pittsburgh Hockey Now wrote that the defense was sabotaging the season. That wasn’t hyperbole; the blue line’s foibles were absolutely an overweight albatross around the team’s neck. The team squandered leads with inexplicable lapses, ghastly turnovers, and timid net-front protection.

Erik Karlsson submitted some of his worst work, especially as a Penguins d-man, in the first few weeks. In the last few weeks, his defensive zone engagement has been as different as it has been effective.

We’ve written about Karlsson’s improvement a few times over the last couple of weeks, so now it’s time to go one further. Not only has the defense improved to at least adequate overall, but the Penguins are becoming reliant on Karlsson.

Karlsson is now the straw that stirs the drink. As he goes, so go the Penguins.

To delve further into the turnaround, watch Karlsson’s work on the walls. When he’s not as engaged, he reaches for pucks or pokes at the puck along the yellow and lingers outside the fray.

When he’s on his toes, he engages in the battle and has a nifty little move in which he turns the puck carrier’s shoulders and takes control of the space. Even if Karlsson loses the battle, he’s in a good defensive position. He’s so quick that it happens in a flash.

Also, his work on the power play has been substantially better this season. That horrendous “back foot, wait to develop” approach is gone, which plays well to his strengths (and Crosby’s).

The beleaguered defensemen, including Ryan Graves and Matt Grzelcyk, have improved their performance. Rookie Owen Pickering’s inclusion spurred the veterans and has given coach Mike Sullivan options when others aren’t performing. For example, before Graves’ recent upswing, Pickering supplanted him in the lineup.

Pickering suffered an upper-body injury Saturday, but P.O Joseph played a superb game. So, the depth remains intact, and Sullivan has options.

3) Goaltending

The teams rising in the Eastern Conference have solid goaltending. Are the New Jersey Devils dramatically different than they were last season? No. Jack Hughes is healthy, which helps tremendously, but they’re also getting good goaltending. Markstrom’s diving save on Crosby was a game-saver on that muddy track.

The Penguins?

In the first 20 or so games, bad goaltending equaled bad results. In the last 15 games, good goaltending equaled good results. The improved defensemen helped, but the Penguins’ 9-2 win over the Montreal Canadiens last week was born of Tristan Jarry holding the fort until the Penguins got a couple of goals. The game wasn’t a laugher until the third period.

Jarry also bailed out the Penguins Thursday in Nashville. Despite seeing only 26 shots, he had to make a dozen or more difficult saves. The goaltenders’ stat lines are not great, but the numbers belie the quality of netminding the team has received. The Nashville win was a prime example.

“I thought he made some key saves at key times,” Sullivan said after the 5-4 OT win in Nashville. “I thought he was fine–you know, the stats in a one-game snapshot scenario sometimes can be deceiving. We try to look at it in more detail with respect to the timing of saves and the types of goals scored … And so I thought he made a handful of big saves for us in order to keep it within striking distance when we needed him to.”

4) The Competition

The Carolina Hurricanes represent a terrible matchup for the Penguins in the regular season or playoffs. But would the Washington Capitals, New York Rangers, or New York Islanders present an unwinnable series?

The Penguins dispatched the division-leading Capitals at Capital One Arena last month.

The Penguins were in a 1-0 game into the third period against New Jersey until a rough sequence and call went against them. The Penguins were not outclassed, though they probably got a hard lesson or two in dealing with New Jersey’s speed.

For that matter, would a seven-game series against Carolina with Pyotr Kochetkov in goal be unwinnable? Answer: Definitely winnable.

The Toronto Maple Leafs AND Florida Panthers can’t both win the Atlantic Division, so if the Penguins can make the playoffs AND avoid getting shoveled into the former Adams Division (which depends as much on them as it does which division winner will have more points), then they’d only have to face one of them.

Sure, it seems silly to propose that a 15-14-5 team could indeed make waves in the playoffs and could have a short path to the Stanely Cup Final, but if ever there was a reincarnation of the Joe Louis “Bum of the Month” club, the 2024-25 Eastern Conference bears a striking resemblance.

(And no, the “Bum of the Month” club was a collection of tomato can fighters sacrificed to Louis, not a group of scantily clad women on Instagram).

Somebody HAS to win the East.

If Penguins general manager Kyle Dubas doesn’t gut the team before the March 7 NHL trade deadline, there’s just enough reason to hope the Penguins have a chance.

Of course, getting into the playoffs will be difficult. The Penguins are at least six points behind Carolina for third place and trail the Ottawa Senators by at least three points (Ottawa has two games in hand) for the second wild-card spot. Getting past Ottawa and Boston for the wild card while holding off the Rangers will be a chore. Surely, the Rangers can’t stink all season, right?

Yet there’s every reason to expect the Penguins to be competitive for the remainder of the season. They’re not winning games with smoke and mirrors but generally playing pretty good hockey and getting good goaltending while the defensemen embrace their primary function, and the competition is less fearsome than a tank of goldfish.

Like 39-year-old Jimmy Connors making it to the 1991 U.S. Open Semi-Final (tennis), 59-year-old Tom Watson leading the 2009 British Open (golf), 45-year-old George Foreman winning the heavyweight title, maybe the Penguins have one more great fight left in them.

Hey, why not?