With the Pittsburgh Penguins having already clinched a playoff berth, they entered last night's "Shirts-Off-Our-Backs" home finale against the New York Islanders already looking ahead to the post-season and wanting to make sure they fine-tune their game.
The New York Islanders, obviously, just want their season to be over.
After being embarrassed by the Carolina Hurricanes to the tune of 9-0 on Tuesday night, the Islanders followed that up last night by getting marooned by the Penguins, 6-1, at Mellon Arena.
While Islander forward Frans Nielsen scored a power play goal to give New York a 1-0 lead about 5 minutes into the game, it was all Pittsburgh after that.
The Penguins tied the game later in the first when defenseman Philippe Boucher -- playing his first game after coming off IR about 10 days ago following foot surgery -- picked up a loose puck in the slot and roofed it top corner over Islanders' netminder Joey McDonald.
Pascal Dupuis and Matt Cooke added tallies in the 2nd for the Penguins and, on each one, McDonald looked lost.
In the final frame, Bill Guerin rapped a quick one-timer past McDonald from about 5 feet after Sidney Crosby stole the puck from an Islanders' defenseman on the far boards, walked into the corner and found him alone in front of the New York goaltender.
At that point the game was over, but Crosby and Tyler Kennedy added some icing for the Penguins later in the 3rd to put the Islanders out of their misery.
Evgeni Malkin tallied 2 assists on the evening. With Alexander Ovechkin coming up empty in Washington's 4-2 win over Tampa Bay, Malkin now has a 4 point lead on Ovechkin going into each team's season finale on Saturday. The Capitals visit Florida in their last contest.
Mathieu Garon started for the Penguins in place of Marc-Andre Fleury last night and finished with 28 saves. I guess he was solid enough, but I thought there were too many plays out there where Garon didn't know where the puck was. Watching him play makes me a little uneasy -- not unlike watching former Penguin goaltender Dany Sabourin at times. Sure, Garon hasn't played a lot. But I won't lie -- it'd be nice to see him be a little stronger in there. At least in my opinion.
Penguin fans definitely have to hope Fleury stays healthy in the post-season.
After the game, the Penguins put on a nice show for their fans in the team's 107th consecutive sellout, and 2nd straight complete sellout of all their regular season games. In addition to giving selected fans their game-worn jerseys, they tossed t-shirts and sticks into the crowd. They also autographed a lot of other items for fans.
The Penguin players also revealed they all were wearing t-shirts under their jerseys to honor the 3 Pittsburgh police officers that were killed in the line of duty on Saturday morning, completing a solemn April 9 in the city after a day-long ceremony honoring and putting those brave officers to rest.
Although it looked going into last night that the Penguins' were settling into 6th place in the East, they got some help last night.
The red-hot Carolina Hurricanes were smoked, at home, 5-1 by the Buffalo Sabres. The Sabres were fighting to keep their playoff hopes alive in that one, but that effort came up empty when the New York Rangers also gave the Penguins some additional help by beating the Philadelphia Flyers, 2-1, in regulation.
With the losses by the Hurricanes and Flyers, those 2 teams and the Penguins are now tied with 97 points. Carolina finishes the season Saturday afternoon in New Jersey, while the Flyers still have 2 games to go -- Saturday in Long Island and Sunday at home against the Rangers.
Carolina owns the victories tiebreaker over the Penguins, so if the Penguins are to have any hope of finishing above them, they need to get more points out of their game on the road against the Montreal Canadiens Saturday night than the Hurricanes will have gotten against the Devils that afternoon. If Carolina wins, the Penguins will know going into their game against the Habs that they can finish no higher than 5th.
The Penguins have tiebreakers over the Flyers, so if the Penguins' defeat Montreal, the Flyers will need 3 points out of 4 in their last 2 contests to finish higher than Pittsburgh in the standings. The Flyers' game on Saturday against the Islanders is also in the afternoon so we'll all have a better feel for things by the time the Penguins face-off that night.
I still think odds are better than not that the Penguins finish in 6th. It's hard to think the Flyers won't beat the Islanders, but what happens in their game Sunday against the Rangers and whether Carolina is able to beat New Jersey on the road Saturday afternoon remains to be seen.
It's still possible that the Penguins and Hurricanes may finish 4/5 in the standings and, really, that's something the Penguins' should probably look to avoid. It's not easy playing the hot team in the opening round of the playoffs and no team is on more of a roll going into the post-season than Carolina.
The ideal scenarios for Pittsburgh are to slot 6th or, if not that, hope for a 4/5 matchup against the Flyers.
There are no relevant games tonight so everything is going to come down to this weekend.
More then. Plus, my round 1 playoff preview is coming next week. All we need to do is see who the Penguins draw.
Let's Go Pens.
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