Penguins Room: One Huge Difference This Season; One Simple Question (+)

RALEIGH, N.C. — The Pittsburgh Penguins’ overall record is not what should make them happy. Sitting at hockey .500 with as many wins as losses and another six extra-time losses will not deliver a playoff berth, but the buoyancy to rise to that level after sinking well below in the first two months of the season has created an air of optimism where once self-immolation existed.

In each of the last two seasons, the Penguins were eligible for a playoff berth beyond Game 80. The situations were radically different, but last season, they mounted a furious charge to get there. However, they did so with a pair of large encumbrances: an inability to hold leads and an almost pathological inability to score on the power play.

Both of the last two seasons ended in disappointment and public disillusionment, but a mere few power play goals here, and maybe one there, could have added just a few points and vaulted the Penguins into the mediocre Eastern Conference playoff seeds.

Last season, the power play converted at a horrific 15%. They gave up more momentum than they gained, and multiple points throughout the season, they had given up more shorthanded goals than the power play had scored.

Imagine the crippling effects of having a minus rating on a power play. The man advantage is supposed to be a momentum of optimism for the team and a moment of pressure on the opposition. Instead, it was the opposite.

This season, the Penguins have flipped the script. They’re a top-five power play in the league, and its efficacy earned them a point Friday in Florida that would have otherwise not been. The Penguins scored a pair of power-play goals, including a late goal that was part of their persistence pushing the game into overtime and then the shootout.

Last season? They assuredly would have lost badly. They would have been discouraged within the earlier stages of the game, and the tumbling effects would have crippled their even-strength game, too. The final score would have elicited another round of deafening calls for destructive roster changes.

We know because it happened often. But not this season.

It’s another simple question for the stars that fill the Penguins room. Pittsburgh Hockey Now asked, “What is the difference in the power play this season?”