The best time of the year is upon us once again. No, not spring, but the Stanley Cup Playoffs.
Once again, the Penguins are one of the favorites to bring home the Cup. That will be much harder this year because they will likely not have Pascal Dupuis, Kris Letang or Tomas Vokoun.
Currently they sit 1st in the Metropolitan League and 2nd in the Eastern Conference with 101 points, 9 behind 1st place Boston.
They have 7 games remaining before the start of the playoffs. The remaining games are: Carolina on 4/1, Winnipeg on 4/3, Minnesota on 4/5, Colorado on 4/6, Detroit on 4/9, Philadelphia on 4/12 and Ottawa on 4/13.
Since they won the Cup in 2009, the Pens have not had very much success in the playoffs. They lost in the Conference Semifinals to Montreal in 2010 and in the Conference Quarterfinals to Tampa Bay and Philadelphia the next 2 seasons.
Last season, they looked like they were going to destroy the competition in the playoffs after going undefeated in March and acquiring Jerome Iginla, Brenden Morrow, Jussi Jokinen, and Douglas Murray at the trade deadline.
However, their regular season success didn’t carry over into the playoffs. They were almost defeated by the #8 seed New York Islanders but took the series thanks to strong play from Toma’s Vokoun.
They easily dispatched Ottawa in the Semifinals and moved on to play the Bruins for the Prince of Wales Trophy. It soon became apparent that they were not able to match Boston’s physicality and were consequently swept in 4 games.
This season, they have dealt with injury issues all season, losing over 400 man games, but still managed to be one of the better teams in the NHL. They have also struggled with inconsistent play, but that can be attributed to the revolving door of players in the lineup game-to-game.
There is some good news though. Sidney Crosby hasn’t lost a game to injury and leads the league in points. He is a lock in to win his 2nd Art Ross Trophy (leading scorer) and is the favorite to win the Hart Trophy (league MVP) for the 2nd time in his career.
The biggest question is will Marc-Andre Fleury choke yet again in the playoffs? It really does not matter how well he plays during the regular season if he cannot stop a beach ball in the playoffs.
One of their weaknesses was very little forward depth, but the acquisition of Marcel Goc and Lee Stempniak have addressed that problem.
All things considered, if the Pens have gotten this far with all the injuries they have had, there is a very good chance that Pittsburgh will host another Stanley Cup parade this June.