Penguins Practice: Aiming to Break Even; Boston Bottoms Out

CRANBERRY — The Pittsburgh Penguins have a chance to make some history — or, at least, earn a footnote in it — by the end of this regular season.

They’ll be trying hard to avoid it, even if that’s not a major source of motivation.

If they lose either of their final two games, both of which will be at PPG Paints Arena — against Boston Sunday at 3:38 p.m. and against Washington Thursday at 7:08 p.m. — the Penguins will finish with a losing record for the first time since 2005-06.

That was Sidney Crosby’s rookie season, and the Penguins ended up 22-46-14.

They enter their game against the Bruins with a 33-35-12 mark, and can finish .500 — according to the NHL’s accounting, anyway — with victories over Boston and the Capitals.

But such bookkeeping isn’t likely to give the Penguins much incentive in these final two games.

“I don’t even know if we look at that right now,” forward Connor Dewar said after practice Saturday at UPMC Lemieux Sports Complex.

Right winger Bryan Rust agreed. To a point, anyway.

“I’m not sure too many people in here have thought about it,” he said. “But once it’s brought up, we’d like to probably finish .500 or better.”

Well, “better” won’t be an option, unless the NHL suddenly decides to award more than two points for a victory, but maintaining their generally solid, though hardly flawless, play of late could be its own reward.

“What matters is just finishing strong,” Crosby said. “It’s been a difficult situation … We’ve had our backs against the wall for a while. We probably had to win out to give ourselves a chance, but we’ve done a pretty good job of trying to make the best of it, playing hard every night and staying responsible to one another.

“We’re just trying to finish strong. If that translates into two wins, that’d be great.”

Tough times in Boston

The Penguins are having a seriously disappointing season.

The Bruins can only dream of being so successful.

Two years ago, Boston won the Presidents’ Trophy as the NHL’s best regular-season team, but the Bruins are 32-39-9 now. That leaves them in last place in the Eastern Conference and ahead of only Nashville. Chicago and San Jose in the overall standings.

“It’s obviously surprising, for a team that’s been good for as long as they have,” Rust said, “But it just goes to show you that, if a couple of things are off over the course of the year, things can go south.”

Penguins defenseman Matt Grzelcyk, who spent seven-plus seasons in Boston before signing with the Penguins as a free agent last summer, is among the many who did not anticipate the Bruins having such a miserable season.

“They’ve built a winning culture there for a really long time,” he said. “It’s obviously tough to sustain for such a long period of time, but I’m sure they’d be the first ones to tell you that they’re surprised, as well, and didn’t anticipate that coming into the year. There are still a lot of really good players there and I know that they have a lot of pride in the locker room.”

This will be the first time since 2006 that the Penguins and Bruins both missed the playoffs. The Penguins had the second choice in that year’s draft and picked Jordan Staal, while Boston claimed Phil Kessel with the fifth selection.

Personnel combinations

Here are the forward lines and defense pairings deployed during the Penguins’ practice:

Ville Koivunen-Sidney Crosby-Bryan Rust
Danton Heinen-Evgeni Malkin-Rickard Rakell
Valtteri Pustinen-Kevin Hayes-Connor Dewar
Joona Koppanen-Vasily Ponomarev-Philip Tomasino

Matt Grzelcyk-Kris Letang
Conor Timmins-Erik Karlsson
Ryan Graves/Ryan Shea/Vladislav Kolyachonok

Tomasino, who is recovering from a concussion, wore a white (no-contact) jersey in the early portion of the workout, but switched to a regular one later.

Coach Mike Sullivan said his condition will be assessed after it is determined how he got through the practice, and that Tomasino might be a game-time decision Sunday.

One arrives, another departs

Swedish winger Melvin Fernstrom, who came over from Vancouver in the Feb. 1 trade that sent Drew O’Connor and Marcus Pettersson to the Canucks, appeared at the Penguins’ facility and went through a 50-minute session on the ice before the full-squad practice.

At the same time Fernstrom was going through drills, the Penguins announced that winger Emil Bemstrom had been sent to their farm team in Wilkes-Barre.