The Pittsburgh Penguins spent the four weeks leading into the NHL’s holiday break providing some evidence that the most bountiful era in team history might not be over yet.
The New York Islanders did not receive nearly the same amount of encouragement regarding their ability to extend the franchise’s most successful stretch in decades.
A pair of teams who appear to be headed in different directions will resume their schedules Saturday night, when the Penguins visit the Islanders in Elmont, N.Y. in the opener of a home-and-home set.
Both teams last played Monday night, when the host Penguins continued surging with a 7-3 win over the Philadelphia Flyers, and the Islanders were routed by the visiting Buffalo Sabres 7-1.
The win was the ninth in the last 13 games (9-3-1) for Pittsburgh, which since Thanksgiving has climbed into fourth place in the Metropolitan Division and moved within one point of the final Eastern Conference wild-card spot. The Penguins’ surge began Nov. 27, when they were in last place in the Metropolitan and five points out of a wild-card spot following a 5-4 win over the Vancouver Canucks.
The Penguins have scored five goals or more seven times in the last 13 games after scoring four goals or fewer in 18 consecutive games prior to the win over the Canucks.
Core players Bryan Rust, Evgeni Malkin and Kris Letang — all of whom were on the Penguins’ back-to-back Stanley Cup champions in 2016-17 — have combined for 17 goals since Nov. 27. The trio had just 12 goals in the Penguins’ first 23 games.
Sidney Crosby, a three-time Cup champion, has 16 assists in the last 13 games after collecting 13 assists over the first 23 games.
“I think you learn a lot about your group when you struggle and you get to a bit of a funk — can you bring yourself back out of it?” Penguins general manager and president of hockey operations Kyle Dubas said during a SportsNet Pittsburgh broadcast Monday night. “I think we obviously dug in, starting with that game against Vancouver.
“I’m proud of the group for the way they responded.”
The Islanders had the full holiday break to ponder how they’ll respond to their latest discouraging defeat. New York set a season high for goals allowed Monday, when the Sabres raced out to a 5-0 lead on their way to snapping their 13-game losing streak.
The loss continued a disappointing season for the Islanders, who fell into last place in the Metropolitan with Monday’s defeat but have 11 players left from the teams that made back-to-back trips to the league semifinals in 2020 and 2021 — the first time New York reached the final four in consecutive seasons since it made the Stanley Cup Finals five straight times from 1980-84.
The Islanders also have 17 players remaining from the squads that overcame slow starts in each of the previous two seasons to qualify for the playoffs. But they are beginning to run out of time to mount a similar comeback.
The Islanders, who are five points out of the final wild-card berth, have won back-to-back games just twice and are 6-10-4 against the 15 other teams that entered Friday outside of a playoff spot.
“We’ve got a lot of work ahead of us,” Islanders center Bo Horvat said Monday. “It’s not going to be an easy run. It’s not going to be an easy road to get back to where we want to get, but we have no one to blame but ourselves. We put ourselves in this situation, obviously.”
–Field Level Media
