After rattling off a modest three-game winning streak against some modest opponents, the Pittsburgh Penguins have quickly repositioned themselves out of the very basement of the NHL and onto the next few stairs up from that basement. On Thanksgiving Eve Pittsburgh escaped with a 5-4 win over the visiting Vancouver Canucks after leading 5-1 thirteen minutes into the second period, then on Black Friday they held on to a 2-1 victory against the Bruins in Boston. Coming back to Pittsburgh for a quick turnaround to host the Calgary Flames on Saturday, you might have been forgiven for thinking the Penguins would come out flat, but (as they were also on the second night of a back-to-back) the Flames were even flatter and further still as Pittsburgh rolled out to a 5-0 lead, including three power play goals, and eventually put Calgary away with a triumphant 6-2 win.

Thus the Penguins have earned themselves their first three-game winning streak of the season; much more than that, they are looking better. Not great, let’s not go that far, as they still let the Canucks climb back within one goal on Wednesday, and of those three opponents Vancouver was arguably the strongest, but they’re still not at the very top of the NHL standings. Nevertheless, Pittsburgh had a lot of trouble against playoff teams in the first twenty-something games of the regular season, and they just swept a trio of them in four days. I am still a little wary of calling this a turning point in the season, as they have a lot of ground in the standings to recover along with goodwill. However, it’s better to start the season 10-12-4 rather than end it that way, because at least they have 56 games left to play and now they are closer to a playoff spot than they are to the bottom of the League standings.

Compared to last week, the next four days pose a reasonably more difficult challenge to the Penguins, starting with tonight’s visit from the Atlantic Division-leading Florida Panthers. After that they have a back-to-back, first in Manhattan to visit the New York Rangers, then back home to host the second-in-the-Atlantic Toronto Maple Leafs. The Panthers are pretty similar to the Canucks in terms of overall performance: only two standings points separate the two teams, and their power play, penalty kill, shooting, and save percentages are all very close if not identical in some cases. But there are a couple major differences between the two: besides Florida’s overall good health to start the season, they also play much higher event hockey, particularly in their opponents’ end. Not that the Panthers are one of the most aggressive teams offensively (Pittsburgh is more so than they are), just that they are a step up from Vancouver, so it will be quite telling if the Penguins are able to prevent Florida from getting going offensively.

I’ll talk more about the Rangers and Leafs in a couple of days, but the overall idea is that, if the Penguins are indeed finally figuring themselves out, we’re going to see in the next handful of days how close they are to that point. Otherwise, there’s no sense in making much of the winning streak on which they’re currently working.