Penguins’ Unstoppable Surge Shakes Up Olympic Break Standings—What’s Driving Their Sudden Momentum?
That does leave one to wonder what will come next in the upcoming unofficial fourth segment of the season when games resume. Unfortunately for the Pens, it’s going to be a tough path to travel. They have the NHL’s toughest remaining strength of schedule based on quality of opponent. From Tankathon:
The Pens still have a lot of obstacles in their path in what looks like a brutal slate in March. The Pens will play 17 games in the month, tough enough as that may be it’s even more daunting seeing 14 of those 17 opponents currently in a playoff position. Seven of those games come against teams that are currently first in their division. That will be highlighted with three March games against Carolina, the team the Penguins find themselves eight points behind for first place in the Metropolitan Division.
Despite the upcoming brutal path, most models are bullish on the Pens’ chances to make the playoffs due to the strong work they’ve put together to this point. The Athletic is projecting a season finish of 95.8 points, Hockeystats.com is at 98. The Pens’ current statistical pace is 103 points based off how they’ve done so far. The team already has 70 points with 26 games to go, meaning both models are expecting close to a .500 finish in the games that remain. That could be something to keep in mind, if the Pens can over-perform that figure then their projections will shift up, and the opposite will hold true if the losses and regulation losses start stacking up again.
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