Big Weekend for Pens

While we are all caught up in March Madness and our ever-collapsing brackets, little attention has been paid to the Penguins and their lackluster performance of late. When I last wrote about the Penguins about a week and a half ago, they were off to a 5-1-1 start after the Olympic break and looking particularly strong to earn the number two seed in the Eastern Conference. Since then, the Pens have gone 1-2-2 and relinquished the division lead and the inside track on that coveted number two seed to the New Jersey Devils.

During this recent slump, the Penguins got manhandled again by New Jersey, lost to a terrible Carolina team in overtime, played one of their worst games of the year against Detroit and lost again in a shoot-out to Washington. The loss to the Devils was the Penguins sixth loss in six games, not a good sign were the teams to meet in the playoffs. Sidney Crosby has only 2 points in these last five games and only 1 goal in his last nine. Evgeni Malkin has missed four of the last five games with a foot injury and it now appears Sergei Gonchar is banged up as well. None of these are good signs for a team trying to build momentum heading into the playoffs. Remember last year at this time the Penguins were in the midst of an 18-3-3 finish to the regular season that propelled them into the playoffs and onto a Stanley Cup Championship.

The good news is that the Penguins have nine games remaining to kick it into full gear and get some momentum heading into the playoffs. Neither Malkin’s nor Gonchar’s injuries appear serious and both should be back in the line-up in the near future The Pens are currently tied with the Devils for the division lead, though the Devils have one game in hand and currently own all the tiebreakers. It is important for the Penguins to jump-start this push with a strong performance this weekend with home games against Philadelphia and Toronto. A good showing this weekend coupled with a tough back-to-back for New Jersey (at Montreal and at Philadelphia) and the Penguins will be right back in the driver’s seat for that number two seed and more importantly, back on track heading into the playoffs.

In between watching the Elite Eight games this weekend, I will definitely be checking out how Mario’s team is doing. This weekend could go a long way to determining how the Penguins fare in the upcoming Stanley Cup playoffs.