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Be it serendipity or the result of intent by the NHL’s schedule-makers, the Pittsburgh Penguins have a very Metropolitan final four weeks of the season.
Beginning with 1 p.m. Saturday at home against the Washington Capitals, 14 of the Penguins’ next 15 games are against Metropolitan Division teams. Only the April 4 season finale at Ottawa and a March 25 game in Chicago remain outside of the Metro.
That the Penguins have so many games left against their division rivals foretells a two-fortnight stretch that will be as grueling as it is consequential to the Penguins’ season.
“It’s unbelievable. Our division’s been the best (in the NHL in 2019-20),” forward Jared McCann said Friday after practice in Cranberry. “It’s pretty crazy to see how each (Metro) team wins every night, and these next (15) games here we’ve got a lot against the Metro division, so we are going to have to be ready to play.”
By days, the season is about five-sixths complete. By total games, it’s more than 80% done.
But when it comes to the Penguins’ Metropolitan divisional schedule, they have played only half of their 28 scheduled intra-division games.
That they’ve won only half of those (7-4-3) is attributable to the division’s strength. The Metro’s seventh-place team (Carolina) would have been in fourth place in each of the NHL’s other three divisions heading into Friday’s games. Three of the top seven teams in the league’s overall standings are from the Metro.
Through Thursdays games, the Metro’s top three teams are separated by three points, the next four spots by four points. Not counting last-place New Jersey, first place through seventh place in the Metropolitan entered Friday separated by 12 points. The other divisions had gaps of 38, 20 and 20 points between their first- and seventh-place teams.
“Everyone around the league is really watching it,” forward Nick Bjugstad said of the Metro race. “There are some teams surging right now, and there’s no room to really breathe.”
When the Penguins and Capitals met 13 days prior to Saturday, they were tied for first place. Since, the Penguins have fell to third (84 points) and the Philadelphia Flyers have jumped into a tie with Washington for the division lead (87 points). The Flyers have won eight consecutive, and the Penguins had a six-game losing streak before winning their past two.
What makes the Penguins’ backloaded intra-divisional schedule so quirky is no other Metro team has more than 11 division games left. None of the other contenders (leaving out New Jersey) have more than 10.
Outside of bragging rights against so many familiar and often-disliked foes, what are the stakes in this final stretch? For starters, the Penguins still are not absolute locks for a playoff berth. They are just eight points clear of the Rangers, who sit third in the wild-card standings.
Home ice in the postseason is also on the line. No more than two of the group of Washington, Philadelphia and the Penguins will open the first round at home. Perhaps more problematic, two of the three would put themselves in a likely position to have to go through the other two to advance to Round 3.
“You want home-ice advantage in the playoffs, right?” McCann said, rhetorically. “I feel like that really helps.”
The other prize associated with guaranteed home ice in Rounds 1 and 2 is a division-title banner. That’s something the Penguins have just one of in six years since the Metro was established. The Penguins have a relatively paltry nine division titles in their 51-season history, a total seems to belie their five Stanley Cups.
The Penguins’ past four Cups, in fact, have come after not winning the division that season. With that in mind, is reaching first place even a priority for the Penguins?
“We haven’t given (the division title) much thought,” coach Mike Sullivan said. “We are just trying to win games, and we will see where that takes us.”
Wing Jason Zucker didn’t necessarily disagree with his coach’s classically coach-speak answer. But he did allow that if the league wanted to formally recognize the Penguins as the best team in their division, they certainly wouldn’t turn it down.
“You know what, you’re trying to win everything, right?” Zucker said. “Ideally, if you can win your division, win the President’s Trophy, win the Cup, everything, then you have had a heck of a year. You are always trying to win everything, no matter what it is. And if we win the division, I think that makes it that much more likely we’ll win more after that.”
Keep up with the Pittsburgh Penguins all season long.
Chris Adamski is a Tribune-Review staff writer. You can contact Chris by email at cadamski@tribweb.com or via Twitter .
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March 07, 2020 at 07:50AM
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Penguins have chance to make up serious ground in Metro race - TribLIVE
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