With nothing to gain but personal milestones and nothing to avoid but serious injuries, the Pittsburgh Penguins' regular season finale against the New York Islanders yesterday on Long Island fit the bill for them pretty well.
They beat the Islanders, 6-5, in overtime after blowing a 5-2 lead and gained two points in the standings to cross the 10o point barrier for just the 6th time in franchise history.
Pittsburgh finished with 101 points -- 2 more than they finished the regular season with last year -- on the strength of a 47-28-7 record.
Like last year, that total gave them 2nd place in the Atlantic Division, 4th place in the Eastern Conference, and an opening round date with this year's 5th seed, the Ottawa Senators, at home this Wednesday, April 14.
In addition, Sidney Crosby was able to get goals 50 and 51 on the season to finish as one of the winners of the Rocket Richard trophy as the NHL's leading goal-scorer, together with Tampa Bay Lightning forward Steven Stamkos.
Despite their win, it was clear to me that the Penguins weren't in any kind of playoff mode yesterday and, in my opinion, that was understandable.
They were missing several key players, including Alexei Poninkarovsky (serving the 2nd of a 2-game suspension), Chris Kunitz (shoulder), Brooks Orpik (leg laceraction) and Matt Cooke (upper body/head).
By the way, all four players should be ready to go for game 1 against Ottawa on Wednesday, putting the Penguins at just about full-lineup-strength.
On top of missing those 4 guys yesterday, it was obvious that the biggest focus of the team would be to get Crosby at least a share of that goal-scoring title, and you had to look no further to figure that out than Head Coach Dan Bylsma's decision to play Evgeni Malkin on Crosby's RW all game long.
Starting the day, Crosby was tied with Tampa Bay Lightning young phenom Steven Stamkos with 49 goals, both one behind Alexander Ovechkin, who had 50.
2 periods later, Crosby had his 50th and 51st tallies to go with 3 assists and it wasn't completely out of the question that he could make an incredible, final-game, 8-point run to tie overall NHL points leader Henrik Sedin of the Vancover Canuks for the Art Ross Trophy.
Alas, that didn't happen and Sedin came away with that championship, but Crosby at least was able to do his thing and snag a share of the Richard. And that was only because Stamkos got a cheap empty-net goal with 13 seconds remaining in the Lightning's 3-1 win over the Florida Panthers.
Even then, because Stamkos got his empty-net tally to tie Crosby when the Pens & Isles still had 10 minutes left in their game, Sid had his chance. And he almost got that extra goal, too, but to no avail. Instead, the Pens settled for a spectacular top corner laser wrist shot from a pinching Jordan Leopold to win it on a rush in the last minute of the overtime.
Leopold's tally, along with Crosby's two tallies, 2 goals from Malkin, and the first of the season from enforcer Eric Godard was enough for Pittsburgh.
Brent Johnson, starting for the Pens' in goal, stopped 33 of 38 New York shots in getting his 10th win of the season.
The Penguins finished the season ranked 19th on the power play at 17.2%, which is a far cry from the bottom of the barrel where they were most of the year.
Their PK unit finished a strong 9th overall, at 84.1%. As of yesterday, they were 2nd in the league killing penalties on the road, although they gave up 2 man-advantage goals to the Islanders in 9 chances.
In two statistical categories that are good indicators of how HC Dan Bylsma likes his team to play, Pittsburgh finished tied with the Washington Capitals for 3rd in the league in shots per game, at 32.8, while finishing 6th in the league in shots allowed, at 28.7 per game.
Pittsburgh had 3 players finish in the top 20 in hits -- defenseman Brooks Orpik, and forwards Mike Rupp and Craig Adams. Orpik was 6th.
Tomorrow, I'll start to examine the Ottawa Senators a little bit, then I'll have a full-blown preview of the Penguins/Senators first round series on Wednesday.
It's the best time of the year, boys and girls.
The 2010 Stanley Cup playoffs.
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