On Saturday the Pittsburgh Penguins beat the San Jose Sharks 10-2, a result that was never in doubt even before the game started (right guys?!). There’s no sense in trying to analyze it too much but, if you want to be a cynic, the Penguins did allow two power play goals against which knocked their penalty kill down a few notches. For as successful as the fourth line was without Jeff Carter at even strength, they somehow were missing his influence (such as it is) being a man down. Tristan Jarry could also have done a better job, but that’s nothing new at this point. Still, we’ll take the win and move forward, because it’s impossible to revel in such a lopsided result against a team that is super bad.

As much as the Penguins are probably not as bad as their record would suggest, the Anaheim Ducks might be as good as (or better than) theirs. After starting the season 1-4, they are currently on a six-game winning streak (including their last-minute 4-3 win over Pittsburgh last Tuesday). Four of those six wins have been of the one-goal variety, including three in overtime, which is a good way to build a sense of a killer instinct about yourself.

A big factor in their success has been the emergence of Lukas Dostal, the 23-year-old Czech netminder who has supplanted Josh Gibson as Anaheim’s #1 goaltender. Of goaltenders who have played at least half of their team’s games, he is in the second or third tier of goaltenders which includes the likes of Vegas’ Logan Thompson, Boston’s Linus Ullmark, Dallas’ Jake Oettinger, so pretty good company. (I wish Tristan Jarry could be mentioned in the same breath as those guys.) The Ducks needed to have a reliable goaltender step up as Gibson’s talents have been waning for years, and now it looks like they might become a dark horse for a decent playoff run if things continue this way.

Since there’s not much else to discuss, how about this little tidbit: Pittsburgh has six players scoring at better than a point-per-game pace: Sidney Crosby, Evgeni Malkin, Jake Guentzel, Bryan Rust, Reilly Smith, and…Vinnie Hinostroza. Erik Karlsson needs three points tonight to be at a point-per-game. Anyway, I mention this because no other team has this many players scoring a point-per-game or better, which I guess is a silver lining!