Pittsburgh has 19 games left in the regular season with 14 of those games coming against Metropolitan Division rivals. Today is one of the five games they have left outside of their division. Today may also be their easiest game left on the schedule.
The Calgary Flames were sellers at the deadline and are in a race for worst team in the NHL at the moment. They are only four points removed from the Toronto Maple Leafs for last overall in the NHL and they have a "game in hand".
Calgary is dead last in the NHL with an EVSV% of .912 which is unacceptable.
Calgary possesses the puck better than the PDO driven 2014-15 team did. They have a Score-Adjusted Fenwick of 48.4% which is 22nd overall.
Do not get into overtime against the Flames because you will get Johnny Gaudreau'd. Calgary is 8-2 in the 3 on 3 overtime session. Johnny Gaudreau has three goals and four assists on the eight goals Calgary has scored in overtime this year.
On the flip side the Penguins are 4-4 in the overtime session this year. Both Mike Johnston and Mike Sullivan have refused to use what could be the most lethal 3 on 3 combo in the league with Sidney Crosby, Evgeni Malkin, and Kris Letang. There are times where the team even has a timeout to burn in order to find a way to use that trio and still does not.
If Pittsburgh takes care of business they won't have to worry about this scenario playing out today.
Kevin Porter is likely out for the rest of the season with a serious ankle injury that required surgery. He did not throw a net off the moorings because the play wasn't blown dead the other night. Instead the officials watched him hobble all the way from the corner to his own bench.
Josh Archibald was called up from WB/S to take Porter's place on the roster. He is fast but there isn't much else to his game. At 23 years of age somebody with NHL prospects should be clicking near a point per game in the AHL. He as 14 points in 51 games so far this year on the Baby Penguins. I would argue that newly acquired Dustin Jeffrey would have been a more appropriate call up until Pittsburgh gets a few of their other NHL forwards back.
Beau Bennett and Eric Fehr are starting to make progress on their returns but there is still no time table for it. They joined their teammates for practice for the first time yesterday
.@Penguins Eric Fehr, Beau Bennett move closer to returning to action, writes @BWest_Trib. https://t.co/CHM9mCVis6 pic.twitter.com/rgvdmANnVX
— PittsburghTribSports (@TribSports) March 5, 2016
Both went through shooting and passing drills prior to the noon start of Friday's practice and remained on the ice when the rest of the team arrived. No contact drills were conducted, so Fehr and Bennett participated in all activities.
Here is a look at the Eastern Conference playoff race:
Pittsburgh is in an OK spot considering where they could have been if not for the coaching change mid-year. They are starting to separate from the other teams chasing them. I would like to draw attention to the goal differential column. This late in the season you can start to see who the contenders and pretenders are. Green is obviously good and all teams in green are currently in a playoff spot in the East. In the Western Conference every single team that is in a playoff spot is green and every single team out of it is red. Detroit is literally the only team that falls outside of the trend.
Let's take a look at all the teams that are currently in a playoff spot in the Eastern Conference
Green means a team is in the top third, yellow the middle third, and red is the bottom third. The deeper the shade the closer they are to the top of that tier.
I threw in Sullivan's sample because of the stark differences in possession. You can see that Marc-Andre Fleury has come back down to earth a little bit after the red hot start. The shooting percentage has increased from where it was prior.
Tampa and Pittsburgh are the only green possession teams. The other Eastern Conference teams are leaning more on the variance side of things. The Rangers and the Panthers are riding the PDO train hard, especially New York who is in the top five in save and shooting percentage this year.
Washington is in the upper middle tier for both possession and save percentage. They are a good team, but not unbeatable.
The Eastern Conference looks pretty wide open. Who is going to stay healthy? Who's variance will be favorable in the short sample size of a playoff series?
****
Dion Phaneuf gets a short video tribute from the #leafs in his return to ACC tonight.
— Chris Johnston (@reporterchris) March 5, 2016
Hmmmm, I thought they didn't do that anymore...
Thanks for reading!