Penguins Key to Completing Playoff Comeback
It's going to come down to the wire for the Pittsburgh Penguins playoff race.
The Eastern Conference wild card race will likely come down to the wire, and the Pittsburgh Penguins will need to do some serious work. They forfeited control of their destiny on Monday after an overtime loss to the Toronto Maple Leafs.
However, the Penguins odds still hover around 41%, according to moneypuck.com, and four tough matchups remain on their schedule.
Their combination of timely goaltending from Alex Nedeljkovic and top-six brilliance from Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin has helped them to collect points in nine straight games (6-0-3). But, as Monday proved, the bottom six can still tank a game for the Penguins.
The Penguins bottom lines were run off the ice against Toronto, forcing head coach Mike Sullivan to double-shift his top lines.
With two of the final four games head-to-head with other wild card hopefuls, the Penguins need their bottom six to step up. Those lines have only contributed four goals (one being an empty netter) in the last nine games.
Reilly Smith and Valtteri Puustinen are scoreless in their previous 11 games, and Jeff Carter has failed to score in nine straight.
The last time the Penguins clinched a playoff spot the last week of the season was in 2014-15. It took two goals from Brandon Sutter in the season finale against Buffalo to push them over the finish line.
It may take a similar scenario this season, with the Penguins playoff fate potentially coming down to a clash on Long Island in game 82. At some point the Penguins will need someone in their bottom six to step up and make a difference on the scoresheet if they want to clinch one of the final playoff spots in the East.
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