Back to work go the Pittsburgh Penguins as they play their first ever game in Brooklyn, New York. The Islanders have been quietly going about their business all year long. They are currently third place in the Metropolitan Division with 79 points and have two games in hand over Pittsburgh and their 76 points. If Pittsburgh wants to ever graduate from the wild card race defeating the Islanders tonight in regulation is a must barring an unforeseen collapse by either New York team.
I'd like to draw attention to some recent possession stats. Here are the Score-Adjusted Fenwick numbers from the past 20 games:
You'll notice that the three Eastern Conference teams are the third, fourth, and fifth place team in the Metropolitan Division. Philadelphia is making a late charge this year and are only three points back of Pittsburgh in the standings with three games remaining between the two clubs.
Goaltending is also similar between those teams
I added red dots to show where Fleury, Mason, and Greiss reside. Thomas Greiss, yeah that guy, is leading the NHL in save percentage this year. More strange than that is that the Islanders don't always dress him. The Islanders currently have three active goaltenders on the roster like the Penguins do with Jean-Francois Berube being the lesser known of the trio.
Sidney Crosby and John Tavares remain a couple of the best generators of offense in the sport
Impressive about John Tavares is how little "noise" IE: secondary assists he has. He is usually right in the middle of things.
Sidney Crosby is up to third overall in 5v5 points per 60 this year among players with at least 500 minutes played (Sorry Connor). Crosby is at a very impressive 2.58 and the guy he just passed (2.56) also passed up somebody on another pretty important list.
Jagr will almost certainly pass Mark Messier and even has an outside shot to become the second player ever to hit 2,000 career points.
Broken down by team here are his points earned so far:
Pittsburgh 1,079
New York Rangers 319
Washington 201
New Jersey 96
Florida 67
Philadelphia 54
Dallas 26
Boston 9
It seems crazy to think that Jagr is still 1,000 points behind Wayne Gretzky but then you remember that Jagr actually had to play against goaltenders.
Thanks for reading!
Pittsburgh Penguins Blogger • 
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