The Penguins have themselves a great opportunity this evening. They are in direct competition with the New York Islanders in the wild card chase and will be hosting them this evening. This is a pretty big swing game for both clubs. The Penguins have three games in hand on New York and are trailing by only a single standings point. Taking the full two points and preventing the Islanders any would give Pittsburgh quite a cushion when combined with the games in hand. A regulation win by the Islanders would be very helpful to the Islanders overall playoff push, but the Penguins would still have those three games in hand and the ability to track them down. This is the last regular season matchup for the two teams.

This year the Penguins have played the Islanders well the past two contests. The results haven’t matched. Penguins have had an xGF% of 70.11 and 56.00 the past two games against the Islanders. Their goaltending unfortunately has been .840 and .885 at 5v5 in those games.

Here’s how the two teams stack up against one another



Penguins are better at generating. The issue is they don’t cash in on it. Their finishing is in the bottom third of the league, as are the Islanders. The biggest x-factor is the goaltending which the Islanders are first in the league. This is how they’ve stayed afloat to this point.

There was an optional skate today so there weren’t any line rushes. Ryan Poehling did skate. It is unknown at the moment if he will be making his return to the lineup. We’ll have to see if Alex Nylander earned another look with his play the other night. He was out there in the morning skate today. Seems like he has a chance and I would give it to him.

Thanks for reading!

Join the Discussion: » 95 Comments » Post New Comment

» Getting your Penguins fix

» My thoughts on Penguins thoughts

» It's their fault

» Still alive, for now

» Going to need some help now