What The Pittsburgh Penguins Have to Do to Make the Playoffs

Last year, the Boston Bruins earned the Eastern Conference's final playoff berth with a 41-29-12 record, good for 94 points. This season, in the wake of a month-long swoon that has them entrenched in ninth place, the Pittsburgh Penguins will have to garner 50 points in their final 41 games in order to match the 2007-08 Bruins' final total.

Some commentators, such as James Mirtle of the excellent blog "From the Rink," are estimating that 90 or 91 points will lock up a post-season appearance, but for the sake of this piece, I will assume that 94 will absolutely guarantee an eighth-place finish. 

According to my target, the Penguins need to go at least 25-16-0 (or an equivalent record yielding the same amount of standings points) in the second half of the NHL regular season.

After last night's much-needed 3-1 home victory over Atlanta, Pittsburgh has 21 of its remaining 41 games on Mellon Arena ice, highlighted by an eight-game homestand from mid-March through early April. The Penguins also still have 11 of their 18 scheduled match-ups with Western Conference foes in front of them, including two with nearby Columbus, whom the Pens haven't faced since the fall of 2006.

More importantly, 22 of the remaining games will be against teams presently holding playoff position, featuring back-to-back home contests against the twin juggernauts of the West, San Jose and Detroit. Pittsburgh fell to the Sharks on the road 2-1 two weeks before memorably toppling the Red Wings 7-6 in overtime at Joe Louis Arena Nov. 11.

Twenty-two games against "half-season" playoff teams seems about right, considering that just over half of the NHL's member clubs (16 of 30) will ultimately qualify for the Stanley Cup tournament. However, when it comes to facing those hungry teams in ninth place or lower who still have realistic hopes, the Penguins are actually quite fortunate to be in the East, where only the Panthers and the Maple Leafs are within seven points of the No. 8 spot.

Conversely, in the West, only the St. Louis Blues are truly out of the race, since they are 10 points behind eighth-place Phoenix, and have six teams between them and the Coyotes. 

As a result of being in the less-competitive East, Pittsburgh will play seven games against the conference's weak sisters: Atlanta, Tampa Bay, Ottawa, and the Islanders.

In an admittedly rudimentary attempt to figure out a second-half road map to the playoffs, I employed a formula that operates on the assumption that the Penguins can be expected to pick up at least 1.5 points per game against teams that are out of the running, one point each time they face one of the aforementioned "hungry" clubs that are within hailing distance (seven points) of playoff positioning, and 0.5 points per contest against each conference's top eight.

Using this Least Expected Points system, I arrived at the following results: the Penguins can be projected to earn at least 11 points in their 22 remaining match-ups with the top eight, 11 in the 11 games pitting them against teams still in contention, and 12 points in the eight tilts versus the bottom feeders. 

Combine those three sums and we arrive at 44 LEP, coincidentally the exact same result of the disappointing first half of the schedule.

I think we can agree that 44 points was about the lowest total the Penguins could have been expected to accrue through the first 41 games, so if we project that the least amount of points the team will earn in the second half to also be 44, we can assume that there will be a mere six stray points that need to be earned in order to ensure springtime hockey in Pittsburgh.

If the equivalent of three extra victories is all that is needed in 41 games, suddenly the task seems more realistically achievable than a few moments before.

Of course, if the Penguins quickly get back on the 100-plus point pace they were riding through the first two months of the season, making a run at consecutive Atlantic Division titles will become a more worthy goal than simply squeaking into the playoffs.

After all, the Penguins are only seven points back of the division-leading Flyers with three games left against their arch rivals.

But let's not get ahead of ourselves.