Three games in four days for the Pittsburgh Penguins as they are out on the California coast, stopping first in Anaheim to play the second of two meetings with the Ducks. The Penguins beat Anaheim three weeks ago in Pittsburgh, a 4-3 overtime win in spite of Ducks’ goaltender John Gibson stopping 41 shots compared to Casey DeSmith’s 26. But when you are a bad team like Anaheim, the wins don’t come easy even if your goaltender is elite. Curiously though the Ducks have had a slightly better record than the Penguins over the last few weeks, with Anaheim winning five of their last eight games and Pittsburgh going 3-1-3 in their last seven. Consequently the Ducks are able to keep a modicum of self-respect, with four points between them (in last place in the Pacific Division) and the sixth place Vancouver Canucks, while currently and only by the grace of having games-in-hand are the Penguins hanging on to their position as the second Wild Card in the Eastern Conference.

I don’t mean to stray too far from this three-game stretch out west, but the twenty-nine day stretch from February 17 to March 18 is going to be extremely critical. Before Pittsburgh heads home from California, they’ll stop off in Nassau County on the 17th to face the New York Islanders, who are tied with the Penguins in points but, thanks to those aforementioned games-in-hand, the Islanders are technically out of the playoffs while Pittsburgh is in. The next day they’ll be back home to face the second place New Jersey Devils before getting a day off then facing the Islanders again on the 20th. Then Edmonton at home, a back-to-back against St. Louis on the road followed by Tampa Bay at home, then southeastward to Nashville on the last day of the month, and finally the trade deadline on March 3 will be sandwiched by the Lightning on March 2 and the Florida Panthers on March 4. The next five games after that are at home, four against Metro Division rivals, including games against the Islanders and third-place New York Rangers. March 16 and 18 are a rare back-to-back on the road in Manhattan against the Rangers. By then, it should be very clear how the Penguins are situated prior to the last few weeks of the regular season.

So while it would be nice to look at the next three games with a somewhat leisurely, laid-back, California attitude (and with their 10PM Eastern start times, ugh), not only are these three upcoming teams not completely pathetic (they have yet to start offloading their UFAs in the run-up to the trade deadline), but Pittsburgh needs all the points it can get. Recall that the “prize” for the second Wild Card in the Eastern Conference is a date with the Boston Bruins or the Carolina Hurricanes – the gap between the two is now seven points – and the Penguins are winless against both teams this season, with just one game remaining against the Bruins on April Fool’s Day.

That’s not to say that circumstances wouldn’t be different in the playoffs, but as a fan a series against the Bruins sounds like hell to me, no matter how good they are. If Pittsburgh wants to avoid such a fate, they have some work to do: they are seven points out of third place (Rangers) and eleven out of second place (Devils). (First place, Carolina, is probably too far-flung at seventeen points away.) Even if they swept the remaining three games against the Rangers, that alone would not be enough to pull ahead of them and into what would be at this point only third place and a first round series with a New Jersey team that the Penguins also have yet to beat this season.

The key to Pittsburgh’s success is and has always been Tristan Jarry. He needs to get healthy and stay healthy, and never be unhealthy again, and maybe then we can have some optimism about the Penguins’ playoff hopes. He was the first goalie on the ice at yesterday’s practice, so it may be safe to assume he’ll be in uniform for tonight’s game, if not starting. There’s no question Pittsburgh is a serious contender when Jarry is healthy.