The Penguins lost to Tampa last night but still remain incredibly well-positioned to secure a playoff spot this season.
Here’s the relevant standings for them as of now.
While there could be other avenues with a Wild Card spot, for now we’ll keep it simple on the most straight-forward path available to Pittsburgh: finishing in the top-3 of the Metropolitan Division.
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To ensure that, the Penguins simply must not be surpassed by two of: the New York Islanders, Columbus Blue Jackets, Philadelphia Flyers and Washington Capitals. Regulation wins is the first tiebreaker if a team ends up with the same number of points, and that’s good news for the Pens since their 31 RW is unlikely to be overtaken by anyone they’re in competition with (the Caps have a case, but being seven points back with six games to go it’s highly unlikely they will be able to pull into a tie with Pittsburgh).
Since Carolina is 10 points ahead of the Pens, the realistic best case scenario for Pittsburgh is the second spot in the Metro, which easily enough accomplished by keeping all the teams currently behind them that way at the end of the season.
Here’s a breakdown for that:
First glance might look scary, but the maximum totals are not going to be anyone’s final outcome, and shifting down all the time. The Islanders and Flyers play each other tonight, if that games ends in regulation then someone’s max is being reduced by two points (if it ends in OT, it goes down by one for the losing side). A team like the Caps had a max of 99 yesterday before their loss to New Jersey, same story for Columbus who had their max reduced from 102 to 100 as a result of losing last night to Carolina.
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Cut and dry, as of now, a good base-line magic number for the Pens’ is 8. Any combination of eight points earned by PIT or lost by Columbus and Philadelphia is going to lock up a Pittsburgh playoff spot. To secure second place, the magic number is 9 and focus shifts to the Islanders. In that regard, and in a hard-and-fast outlook, if the Pens win four of their last six games then they don’t even need any outside help and will sew things up all by themselves.
What could that mean? Let’s look at the remaining schedules for the remaining teams in the hunt and even forecast their paths in a somewhat conservative way.
(Green represents projected, hypothetical wins, yellow for an OT/SO loss and white for a regulation loss)
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Games have been impossible to predict ahead of time, a team like NYI lost to Chicago and defeated Dallas last week, most would have figured those results being reversed. We’ll split the middle and more or less project 3-2-1 records for everyone, a little above average but nothing extreme. This could be generous considering teams like NYI (3-5-0 in last eight) and CBJ (1-5-1 in their last seven) aren’t exactly setting the world on fire. Could a team like Philadelphia out-perform their projection? Absolutely. Even so, tack a couple more points on and — barring a team going on a ridiculous run — the projected totals seem pretty realistic and viable as a base that likely could have a tolerance of 1 or 2 points in either direction.
This kind of outlook shows how strongly the Pens’ position is. They would need two wins in their last six games to get to 96 points and likely clinch second place if the teams behind them have a semi-realistic finish. If something zany happens – like NYI wins Game 82 vs Carolina because the Hurricanes bench their star players — then that simply becomes Pittsburgh needing three wins to secure second place and home ice advantage.
Who should Penguin fans root for, aside from the obvious for NYI, CBJ and PHI to lose as much as possible in regulation? Game-by-game you can go above for that. Hold your nose, but if the main focus is on second place you’d want the Flyers to win tonight in regulation against the Islanders and then definitely lose their next game against Boston. If the results are reversed and NYI beats the Flyers tonight, the good news for the Pens is that helps the cause for Pittsburgh’s overall playoff number. There’s some bittersweetness and dual feelings on either end of the result, more than anything the preference would be for NYI/PHI to simply not end up going to overtime.
Generally speaking, you’d also like for Atlantic Division teams like Buffalo, Montreal, Detroit and Boston to do well in their multiple games remaining against the Metropolitan Division. Toronto could also play spoiler, though count on that at your own risk. Carolina could also do Pittsburgh a solid by taking care of business in their three games against NYI and PHI. The Winnipeg Jets are out there too with games against CBJ and PHI, the Jets could perform a service with some wins there to bring further momentum out of those two would-be contenders.
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The good news is the math is very much in the Penguins’ favor. If they get even 4, 5 or 6 points in the remaining six games to play then they will be in very good shape to make the playoffs. If they play above .500% down the stretch and gain 7+ points, which isn’t a huge ask, the likelihood of securing the Metro2 playoff spot becomes all but elementary.
Unexpected outcomes can happen — that’s why they play the games to find out who actually wins them — but the current positioning of being up 3-4 points on their opponents (while holding the first tiebreaker) with only six games to go represents a huge edge for Pittsburgh right now. More than anything at this point, for the Pens it’s not about the desperation of going on a big run at the end of the year so much as playing well and being prepared to hit the postseason in good form and with momentum.
