Penguins Update: The Games (In Hand) Game

Take a quick glance at the NHL standings, and it’s evident that the Eastern Conference wildcard race is packed tighter than a tin of sardines.

Heading into Friday night’s action, our Penguins hold the first wildcard spot with 63 points, while Washington and Florida are tied for the second wildcard spot with 62 points apiece, just one point behind the black and gold.

Right behind the Caps and Panthers sit the Islanders with 61 points, followed by the resurgent Red Wings (winners of five straight) at 60 points. Buffalo brings up the rear among the playoff hopefuls with 58 points.

That makes six teams wedged within five points of each other. There’s only room for two come the postseason.

Is the race really that tight? Well, yes and no.

Based on games played and games in hand, the Pens actually have the inside track on a playoff spot. We’ve played 53 games to date, less than every other team in the bunch except for the Sabres, who’ve played the same amount.

With 54 games under their belt, the Red Wings have played one more than us.

As for our closest competition? We have a whopping five games in hand on the Panthers and four in hand on our Metro brethren the Caps and Islanders.

That’s a lot of potential points for our rivals to make up.

Let’s say for the sake of argument the Pens play .500 hockey the rest of the way. Entirely plausible given the team’s up-and-down nature. We’ll peg their record over their final 29 games at 12-12-5, good for 29 points. That would give us 92 on the season. What would it take for our adversaries to overtake us?

The hypothetical records are displayed in the table below:

If we play at a .500 clip the rest of the way, all the teams trailing us in the wild card race would have to improve on their present pace. Significantly so. Given those parameters, the surprising Red Wings would seem to have the best shot of catching us. And they’d still need to step it up.

And if the Pens play better than .500 hockey? Let’s say we split the difference between our present points percentage (.594) and the break-even mark and play roughly .550 hockey during our final 29 games. That would give us a record of 13-10-6 and 32 points during that span for a season total of 95. What would the opposition need to do?

While certainly not impossible, it would seem highly unlikely that any of these teams could reach the required level of excellence for such a prolonged stretch.

In other words? The Pens’ playoff fate pretty much rests in their own (shaky) hands. Based on the projections, all we need to do is pocket points at a reasonably consistent pace to qualify for the postseason for a 17^th straight year.

So why don’t I feel more assured?