(Author’s note: enjoy the fucky graphics for the next week! The graphics guru is out of town, leaving me and my Macbook to our devices.)

It was one month ago that we were all mourning the end of Jake Guentzel’s tenure as a Pittsburgh Penguin, and seemingly everything was going to shit in the wake of that trade. The Penguins were well out of playoff position, deservedly so as they looked nothing like a team that would even win a game in the playoffs, and over the course of the next two weeks Pittsburgh would slip closer and closer to the point of no return. I was looking at Tankathon daily to see if there was any improvement in the Penguins’ lottery odds. At the rate they’d been going all season, a top ten first round draft pick would have been the only silver lining possible in an otherwise gray and dismal season. The story is completely the opposite now. Pittsburgh is on the precipice of making the playoffs, so close in fact that the odds of them keeping their first round pick are as minuscule now as their playoff hopes were just two weeks ago. At this point, there is no silver lining to be had if the Penguins miss the playoffs; their only hope is play more hockey.

Unfortunately their hopes lie elsewhere. Even if Pittsburgh wins every game from now until the end of the season, they need the teams around them to slip up at least once. The New York Islanders are three points ahead of the Penguins for third in the Metropolitan Division, and they host the lowly but spirited Canadiens tonight. The Washington Capitals are one point ahead of Pittsburgh, currently the second Wild Card seed, and tonight hosting Buffalo. The Philadelphia Flyers are not completely cooked, but they need more help than the Penguins do in order to save their season, and they visit the Rangers tonight. The only thing Pittsburgh can do at this point is win, and tonight’s game hosting the Detroit Red Wings is critical to their chances of making the postseason.

There’s a lot of talk about expanding the playoffs, instituting a play-in round and such. I see no reason for that silliness; this coming week is basically a play-in round-robin for teams like Pittsburgh, Detroit, Washington, and the Islanders. They may not play each other much if at all, but they all will be watching how one another does very closely.