NHL Playoff Push: Penguins hanging in, Oilers chasing down Canucks

[ad_1]

You just don’t bet against the greats.

Go back a month, and just about everyone was ruling out the Pittsburgh Penguins because they were 10 points behind in the race and falling apart at the seams. Heck, their own management even seemed to think so, trading Jake Guentzel at the deadline for mostly future assets.

If you go back a few months more than that, you’d get to an early point in the season where panic had firmly set in on the Edmonton Oilers, who had to fire a successful coach. Some wondered how much, if anything, could be salvaged, or if we’d have to start asking hard questions about the core makeup of the team.

Now, both Sidney Crosby and Connor McDavid have led their teams all the way back — Crosby getting the Penguins to the edge of the wild-card race, McDavid pulling his squad into a race for first in the division.

This edition of Playoff Push focuses on those two teams and what’s ahead in the final week-plus of the regular season.

If the playoffs started today:

M1 New York Rangers vs. WC2 Detroit
M2 Carolina vs. M3 New York Islanders

A1 Boston vs. WC1 Tampa Bay
A2 Florida vs. A3 Toronto

Pittsburgh Penguins: Does Sidney Crosby have a case for the Hart Trophy?

Just over a month ago, the Penguins were at their lowest. On the morning of March 5, the Penguins had lost three straight and sagged to 10 points out of a playoff spot — their largest deficit from the wild card all season. The trade deadline was three days away and that losing streak all but assured GM Kyle Dubas would be a seller. Sure enough, Guentzel was moved to Carolina two days later for a large package of futures, and Michael Bunting. Sidney Crosby was left to react to that move after a dreadful 6-0 loss at home to Washington.

“I don’t know. It’s probably a better question for (management),” Crosby said of being on a selling team. “It’s a new experience, for sure.”

What followed, from the outside, were questions on Crosby’s future and if he’d ever consider walking away from this team when he became UFA eligible in 2025. Would he want to re-sign with a stagnant, aging team? Would he re-up quickly after he’s allowed to extend this July 1, or drag out a decision?

The Penguins then won just two of their first nine games after the trade deadline, which surely would have buried them in any normal season — but this year’s Eastern wild-card competition is not a normal playoff race. They didn’t really lose much additional ground on most of the teams around them through that slump (Washington being the exception) and actually gained a point on the Islanders. Everyone was beginning a crawl to the finish.

Now the Penguins are the only ones who are running hot. With a 6-0-1 record in their past seven — including quality wins over the likes of the Hurricanes, Rangers, Lightning and Capitals — Pittsburgh has outscored the competition 30-16, and backup Alex Nedeljkovic has taken over in net. Bunting has settled in as one of the more productive deadline pickups, Evgeni Malkin and Bryan Rust have been point per game players lately, and the whole group is contributing up and down the lineup at the moment.

And then there’s Crosby, who has been one of the NHL’s top scorers for the past month with 22 points in 16 games — no one has more primary assists at 5-on-5 in the league over that span. In some corners, he’s even gaining Hart Trophy momentum. Tough to do in a season where McDavid could become the fourth player ever to reach 100 assists in a season, Nikita Kucherov could score over 50 points more than his closest teammate and Nathan MacKinnon hangs with both of them. Even tougher when you consider that during this hot run for the team, Crosby’s on-ice percentages (shots for, goals for) are hovering around even, or below.

But there’s no doubt he’s been the spirit driving this amazing, perhaps historical, comeback.

On March 27, when the Penguins had 11 games remaining, they were still nine points out of a playoff spot. According to the NHL, the largest deficit a team has ever made up in its final 11 games to get into the playoffs is seven.

If the Penguins do it, they’ll have to keep the heater going with games against Toronto, Detroit, Boston, Nashville and the Islanders remaining. Not exactly a soft finish.

32 Thoughts: The Podcast

32 Thoughts: The Podcast with Jeff Marek and NHL Insider Elliotte Friedman takes a weekly deep dive into the biggest news and interviews around the hockey world.

Latest episodes

If the playoffs started today:

C1 Dallas vs. WC2 Vegas
C2 Colorado vs. C3 Winnipeg

P1 Vancouver vs. WC1 Nashville
P2 Edmonton vs. P3 Los Angeles

Edmonton Oilers or Vancouver Canucks: Who will triumph in the Pacific?

Without any real intrigue in the Western Conference’s wild-card race, the final games of the regular season are all about seeding. But while Dallas has taken control of the Central Division, the top of the Pacific is still up for grabs.

Recent Canucks losses to the Kings (x2), Golden Knights and Stars have agitated this idea that they are the overachievers this season, ripe for an early playoff upset against the toughest competition. Goalie Thatcher Demko is still out with injury, though he is eligible to come off the LTIR any time now and is expected to get game action in before the playoffs. Still, Elias Lindholm is also out with an uncertain timeline, Elias Pettersson hasn’t been his same productive self, Vancouver’s special teams have gone cold and its line combinations and defence pairs have been put in the blender far more often than you’d prefer this late in the season.

This blip has opened the door for the Oilers, who were nearly eliminating themselves just over four months ago.

The Oilers have had games in hand of basically the whole league all season, and that’s now all catching up to them. They have one of the busiest remaining stretches, with six games in nine days and two separate back-to-back scenarios. It could be an opportunity for McDavid to solidify his Hart case (if Crosby gets credit for willing the Penguins along at the end, McDavid surely deserves the same for lifting the Oilers back from the brink since November), though we wonder if “load management” becomes a consideration at any point.

More than that, however, the Oilers would love to see Evander Kane string together some good games. Before scoring twice in Friday’s big win over Colorado, Kane had gone 21 games in a row without scoring and had only four assists along the way.

This coming Saturday, the Oilers will host the Canucks in a game that could go a long way toward deciding the seeding atop the Pacific. And leading up to that game, the Canucks and Oilers will face the same two opponents this week: Arizona and Los Angeles.

More from Sportsnet

Canucks need Pettersson to recapture early-season offensive dominance

32 Thoughts Podcast: Why Evander Kane has to find his game

[ad_2]