The Penguins can’t help themselves. It is who they are this year. They are up, they are down, they are everything in-between and were last night against the Red Wings. They dug themselves an 0-3 hole after the first period only to be tied 3-3 after two periods. From there the Red Wings piled on four goals in the third period with multiple goals being of the deflating variety courtesy of Casey DeSmith.

The Red Wings aren’t a good team this year. It should have been a night to take care of business. The Penguins did not. While their playoff percentage (73.7) is still favorable they are no lock for the playoffs. Games like last night should be part of locking their placement in. Their wins against Colorado and Washington were good. The problem is those are their only two wins in the last eight games. Thankfully, the Florida Panthers are on their own four game losing streak, all in regulation. The Nashville Predators are up next in a game the Penguins have to take advantage of. After Thursday’s game the Penguins will be hosting the league’s best team, the Boston Bruins. The Panthers have the Maple Leafs tonight so a win against the Predators and a loss by Florida would put the Penguins is a decent situation. Problem is you can’t trust the Penguins to take advantage of it. If you could they wouldn’t be chasing points down the stretch as the second wild card team in the first place.

Jason Zucker scored his 25th goal. He has had a tremendous season. Good chance he has priced himself out of Pittsburgh. It remains pathetic how the front office has wasted the performances of Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin. Wasting Zucker’s season is also pathetic. He was supposed to be one of the players who could get the team over the hump with a bounce back season. He had one. It has been a best case scenario situation. It’s a real shame.

The Marcus Pettersson injury has been a problem. It elevates both Brian Dumoulin and Pierre-Olivier Joseph into higher roles than they are capable of. Pettersson is an unsung hero that keeps things going in the right direction. Being on LTIR means Pettersson has to be out for ten games and a total of 24 days. April 10ish is when he would be able to come back. Should give him two games to get ready for the playoffs, if the team is eligible. This also assumes his injury is healed by then. He was diagnosed as week to week.

In other news the NHL remains inept in their ideas to grow the game. This is their latest brainchild.

Dreger on Insider Trading says the NHL may be looking at new ways to market the game next year, one idea is to have a weekday where all 32 teams play, targeting early in the season for this.

— NHL Watcher (@NHL_Watcher) March 28, 2023

Nobody is asking for this. The fans the league already has do not need this. People who are not fans do not give a crap about something like this. The solution is always right there with flashing lights. Keep a normal schedule with multiple games per night. Stagger the game times so not all the games are on intermission at the same time. And for the love of god start the game at the posted start time like they do in the Olympics. Stop starting games 18 minutes or so after the advertised time. That’s it, that is all you have to do to make it palatable for current fans or prospective ones. Nobody wants 16 games in the same day where 12 of them have a 7PM start and four have a 10PM start.

A second-round pick doesn’t buy (Granlund) what it used to, but a 7th round pick can carry some great value. Can even get a 50% cap retention with it

The second of the night for @VranaJakub was the @Energizer overtime winner! pic.twitter.com/M3ConVvgpj

— NHL (@NHL) March 29, 2023

He is up to eight goals in 12 games with the Blues. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Thanks for reading!

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