Playoff payoff: Streak hits 13
Kessel scores twice as Penguins continue postseason run, clinch berth with one game remaining in regular season
Many of these Penguins have known no other way.
Start the regular season in October. Encounter some peaks and valleys along the way. Come early April, after plenty of games won and lessoned learned, preparations begin for the postseason, the annual rite of spring.
Since 2006-07, the Penguins have reached the postseason every year, an NHLbest run that now stands at 13 seasons after Thursday’s 4-1 victory over the Detroit Red Wings at PPG Paints Arena.
It’s a ridiculous run of success, the longest playoff streak in the NHL, a point of pride for every part of the organization.
“I don’t expect less than that,” Kris Letang said. “With the roster we have every year, we should make the playoffs. The expectation is high in this dressing room. It’s not going to be different.”
The expectation might be high for the Penguins, but there was still plenty of nail-biting that occurred as they took their good ol’ time nailing this one down.
Even Thursday, the Penguins fell behind in the first period before rallying with goals from Jake Guentzel and Phil Kessel, who appears to be snapping out of his funk.
Now, with one game to go, the Penguins (44-26-11) will be playing for seeding Saturday against the New York Rangers.
If they win and the secondplace Islanders lose in regulation, the Penguins will get home-ice advantage against them in the 2/3 series in the Metropolitan Division.
But if the Penguins lose in regulation and the Hurricanes win, the Penguins still could drop into the first wildcard spot and open the postseason in Washington.
“As far as seeding, we’ve had lot of motivation up until this point,” Sidney Crosby said. “That’s still something that’s on our mind, and it was on our mind prior to tonight. We have to take care of next game, make sure we play the right way and give ourselves a chance to win.”
There was plenty to glean from Thursday’s win, one that should have the Penguins feeling good about Saturday and beyond.
For one, they were buoyed by the returns of Evgeni Malkin and Letang, who both had upper-body injuries. Their presence was especially noticeable on the power play, where the Penguins scored two goals — or as many as they had in the previous nine games combined.
“Our power play is a different power play when those guys are in the lineup,” coach Mike Sullivan said.
Meanwhile, Phil Kessel scored twice, once on the power play and once at evenstrength. The first involved Kessel banging in a rebound from the left side of the cage. The other was a bullet of a shot from Kessel off a faceoff won by Malkin.
“It was nice to get a couple goals,” Kessel said. “Geno came back, we had some chances. We’ll try to get it going.”
Matt Murray was also terrific in goal, the norm for him lately. He wound up stopping 33 of 34 to improve to 11-4-4 over his past 19 starts, which have come in the Penguins’ past 20 games.
Murray’s biggest save of the night was likely a first-period breakaway stop on Detroit right winger Martin Frk after Justin Schultz’s stick snapped.
Dating to Feb. 23, Murray has a 2.25 goals-against average and .931 save percentage, which actually trump the numbers that the reigning Vezina Trophy winner, Pekka Rinne, produced last year with Nashville (2.31, .927).
“I just think he’s had his most consistent game,” Sullivan said, “and night in and night out he’s been terrific.”
The Penguins also got a key goal from Crosby, who had gone 10 games without one, when the Penguins captain cleaned up the rebound from Kessel’s shot in the third period.
Guentzel picked up his 39th of the season in the first period, while the Penguins did a much better job clamping down on the Red Wings’ speedy top line.
As a group, Tyler Bertuzzi, Dylan Larkin and Anthony Mantha — who combined for all four of Detroit’s goals on Tuesday — had just one five-on-five high-danger chance.
“I thought we came out hard,” Crosby said. “They get that first one, but I thought we just kept going.”