It’s been quite the turn of events for the Pittsburgh Penguins over the past week. This time last week, in the wake of another multi-game losing streak, many people (including myself) saw what these Penguins were doing and knew that, if they were to continue playing like that for the next five-ish months, there was no way they could even try to make the playoffs.

Something of a digression here: the other day on Bluesky I saw a New York Rangers blogger thinking that the Rangers’ next four games (starting with tonight’s against Pittsburgh) could be the make-or-break point for their season. I’ll get back to the Blueshirts in a minute, but two takeaways: first, and I have been reminding myself of this as well, that there are still fifty-something games left to play in the regular season, and these games are not as critical as those in March and April; and second, adversity can serve as a reality check. Whereas the Penguins started the season as a borderline playoff team, the Rangers were pencilled in as a top three team in the Metropolitan Division.

Maybe it’s because New York hasn’t had a Stanley Cup-winning team in thirty years that they’re all doom and gloom before winter has officially started, but they did come into the season with higher expectations, so I can understand at least to that extent why there would be any anxiety. And it’s nice as a Pittsburgh fan to have that perspective, that “it could be worse: we could have been seen as serious contenders.” But the Penguins have had fairly recent glory, far more than the Rangers, and sometimes at their expense, so it’s not really worth getting worked up over being near the bottom of the League standings when there is still plenty of time to course-correct. And that’s what I said to this blogger. And I was ignored. Oh well!

A week and a four-game winning streak was all it took for the Penguins to be right back in the literal thick of things, 10th in the Eastern Conference in standings points, 11th in points percentage, and just one point away from one of the two Wild Card seeds in the conference. The top five teams in the East are separated by the same number of points (five) as the next nine teams, so there is still room for a substantial battle over the eight playoff spots. For the Penguins, I think the concern now is less about being one of the worst teams in the NHL and more about being able to hang in with and even beat the best. So the fact that their current winning streak has been against only playoff teams, considering how much they were struggling against such teams in the first twenty-something games, I think it’s safe to say that Pittsburgh is figuring themselves out. The power play is going great, they’re getting offensive production all over the place (three defensemen(!) scored goals in the Penguins’ 5-4 win over the Florida Panthers on Tuesday), they’re cutting back on the egregious defensive lapses, and the goaltending has done just enough.

For the Rangers followers then to be counting this next stretch of four or however many games as potentially decisive is amusing, because they could just as easily go on a four game winning streak and be in the top three of the division. Yes, the Blueshirts have been the worst team in the NHL over the past two weeks, with just one win in their last seven games. Their Vezina-caliber starting goaltender, Igor Shesterkin, has been merely good performance-wise but he has lost his last five starts and has a losing record. Again, if this was March or April and they were playing like this, I would understand being anxious about falling out of the playoffs too.

However, this is probably the best time of year for things to not be going right. You want to be challenged, you want to be tested, and you want to have that adversity before the All-Star break (or whatever midwinter event is happening), because afterwards is when the playoff race actually starts to take shape, teams make their most serious trades before the deadline, and winning or losing can have a genuine impact on your position in the standings. As amusing as it would be for Pittsburgh to add further tumult to the Rangers’ psyche, the fact is that this is a very important interdivisional tilt for both teams, both teams are well rested, both teams are basically at full health, and this is at Madison Square Garden, so I fully expect New York to put their best feet forward tonight.

After tonight’s game, the Penguins get right back on a plane back to Pittsburgh to play the Toronto Maple Leafs Saturday night, who are also on the second game of a back-to-back after hosting the Washington Capitals on Friday. The Leafs are where the Rangers probably thought they were going to be at the beginning of the season, up at the top two in the division, and have just three regulation losses in their last sixteen games. Over the last ten games they have the best record in the NHL, buoyed mostly by strong goaltending that has allowed the second-fewest goals against per game in that time. Toronto has also benefitted from preventing high-danger shot attempts and shots-on-goal, so even though they have been allowing a high rate of total shot attempts, those shots have mostly been of lower quality and the goaltending has done their job on the rest. Their work in their own end has freed them to not have to worry about blowing teams away with their offense, which is slightly above average in their past ten games and overall. So it will be the Penguins’ job to try and crack the Maple Leafs’ defensive structure at even strength.