About 5 and 1/2 weeks ago, early in February, the Penguins sat in 10th place in the Eastern Conference.
In their 18 contests since, they are 12-1-5.
Put another way, they've earned at least a point in 17 of their last 18 games, 12 of which have been 2-point victories.
Today, they sit in 5th place in the East, 2 points back of the 4th place Philadelphia Flyers.
It's still somewhat of a tenuous grip, mind you, since the 9th place Florida Panthers are only 4 points back, but it's a far cry from where they were.
The latest points the Penguins earned came from a shootout loss Saturday afternoon against the always-troubling Ottawa Senators and a come-from-behind victory against the conference-leading Boston Bruins yesterday afternoon.
The loss to the Senators had to be tough for the Penguins. They had a 3-1 lead in the 3rd period and were cruising. Unfortunately, that probably ended up being Pittsburgh's downfall. They were doing TOO MUCH cruising.
The Penguins built their lead in the game thanks to goals from Eric Godard, Sidney Crosby and Tyler Kennedy.
Crosby's goal came on a beautiful no-look feed from defenseman Mark Eaton across the crease that left Ottawa goaltender Brian Elliott out to dry.
Get Eaton on the power play!
Okay, I'm joking.
Kennedy's goal also was a nice one, as he finished a 2-on-1 that LW Matt Cooke worked hard to create -- blocking a shot, steamrolling up the ice and managing to somehow dish it to TK for the goal.
In the 3rd, with the Penguins in a position to close things out on a 4-minute power play, they were lackadaisical. After the man-advantage, they might as well have been pylons during the next 4 minute stretch, during which Nick Foligno and Chris Phillips scored to tie the game.
Phillips' goal was particularly eggregious, since it started from what basically was a 2-on-3 Ottawa rush. Phillips was a late trailer and the Penguins' chose to stand around waiting for the bus instead of picking him up. Phillips was able to knock in a loose rebound on the doorstep.
Then, after the game finished tied and went to overtime, the Penguins then proceeded to stand aside and see if netminder Marc-Andre Fleury was able to state his case for the 2010 Canadian Olympic squad by seeing how many shots he could stop in a singluar 5-minute timeframe.
Fortunately for them, Fleury stood on his head and rejected all 11 shots -- that's right ELEVEN shots -- the Senators threw at him in the overtime. None of those stops were better than the one he made on Ottawa center Mike Fisher with his left pad.
The shootout went to 5 rounds, until Senators' center Mike Comrie managed to slide one by Fleury after doing a spinorama stop right in front of him to give Ottawa the comeback win and leave the Penguins stunned.
Maybe it was a good thing the Penguins had a game scheduled the very next afternoon, because it gave them an opportunity to quickly forget their meltdown the day prior, and they started off like they were intent on burying those memories when Penguins' RW Bill Guerin took a pass in the slot from Crosby from behind the net and snapped it quickly by Bruins' goaltender Tim Thomas to give the Penguins a 1-0 lead less than one minute into the game.
Boy it's great to see the Penguins score goals like that. They haven't had a right-handed triggerman who can drill them home from the slot in years.
Unfortunately, the Penguins' good start was short lived when they allowed former Penguin and new Bruin Mark Recchi to tie the score when he deflected in a shot from the point past Pittsburgh goaltender Mathieu Garon about 15 seconds later.
Garon was making his first start in 19 games yesterday and his rust was evident from that first Boston shot of the contest.
Later in the first, Bruins' RW Phil Kessel scored his 31st on a nice backhand after a scramble around the Penguins goal. The Bruins made a fair play on the goal, but it was easy for me to see Kessel wide open to the left of the goal before the pass came across. For some reason, though, the play still seemed to leave Garon scrambling.
The Penguins tied the score on a power play goal by LW Chris Kunitz that Crosby had his fingerprints all over. Crosby took a pass at the right of the goal after the Penguins' quick passing created a mini 3-on-2 around the goal and quickly cut back to the middle, leaving Thomas scrambling on the ice. He slid the puck towards the empty cage and it probably was going to go in, except Kunitz was in Thomas' kitchen and the puck went off his stick and in.
In the 2nd period, the Penguins were on another power play and had a chance to take the lead when disaster struck. Defenseman Sergei Gonchar and Evgeni Malkin failed to control the puck in the left corner of their own zone and allowed Bruins' center David Krejci to steal it and quickly pass to RW Blake Wheeler, who slipped a shot past Garon on the far side as he dropped to his knees to give Boston the lead.
That play was a terrible giveaway, and then a worse effort by Garon. Wheeler had been approaching to give Krejci forechecking support when Krejci stole the puck. Once Krejci did his thing, Wheeler quickly reversed direction to go towards the net. But he was in tight already, so by the time Krejci passed to him, Wheeler didn't have a good shooting angle on Garon.
Garon has to have that one at that point in the game. He was just awful on that play.
Boston's 3-2 lead stood until the end of the period when the Penguins were facing the real prospect of losing their 3rd straight.
Fortunately, they came out blazing in the final frame.
Gonchar tied the score on the power play less than a minute in on a shot that deflected off something and went past Thomas. Kunitz was originally credited with the goal, but that call was reversed after the game.
About 20 seconds later, Guerin made a nice play to spring Kunitz, who got enough speed to get around Boston giant Zdeno Chara and break in alone on Thomas, before tucking a backhand through the 5-hole to give the Penguins a 4-3 lead.
At that point, hats rained down from the Mellon Arena stands since everyone thought Kunitz had his 2nd career HT.
True to form, Garon came through again a few minutes later, allowing Bruins' RW Michael Ryder to drill one past him glove side to tie the score once more.
Good shot by Ryder, for sure. I think Garon was a little slow to react to the play, however. Had he been quicker, he might have been able to cut down the angle on Ryder.
RW Petr Sykora restored the Penguins' lead with his 24th goal on a another shot from the slot which beat Thomas far side. Center Jordan Staal picked up a helper on that play, finishing off a nice shift after controlling the puck in the Boston zone.
That score stood until Staal added an empty netter to seal it for Pittsburgh.
Yesterday's win was big for Pittsburgh since, as I mentioned, it kept them from losing a 3 straight, and got them back on the right side of the ledger with 2 more points. Most of the teams on the playoff bubble with the Penguins have one or two games in hand, too, so it's important the Penguins continue to win and stay up on those clubs in the standings.
The Penguins continue to have a lot of work to do on the power play. They were somewhat better yesterday in finishing 2-for-8, but still had a lot of chances to do a lot more damage. Bylmsa has to stop insisting that Malkin play the left point. He's just not nearly as effective there. He has to be on the right boards or down low, swapping positions with Crosby at least sometime.
As I indicated, Garon was not good yesterday. The Penguins won in spite of him. I remain surprised that he played against Boston and not Ottawa on Saturday, if Bylmsa was insistent on getting him a game this weekend, which he seemed to be (and understandably so). Bylmsa's decision to split up the weekend workload the way he did almost cost the Penguins.
The Penguins have 2 winnable games coming up at home against the Atlanta Thrashers on Tuesday and the Los Angeles Kings on Friday, but the Penguins have to be careful. They tend to play down to their opponents and the Trashers, in particular, have been dangerous lately in their games against the other teams in the East on the playoff bubble.
More later this week.
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