Must-wins not urgent, highly recommended

Thursday, February 11, 2010
By Gene Collier, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
http://www.post-gazette.com/sports/

Some will think it's too early for such urgencies and others may consider it melodramatic at best, but the situation presented to the Penguins Wednesday rose to the nouveau definition of a must-win.

In the more traditional sense of the phrase, it was enough just to say the New York Islanders were in the building, which in this cruel February virtually demands the opponents collect two points, or to cease and desist from considering themselves among the game's reliably elite.


Peter Diana/Post-Gazette

Chris Kunitz, left, celebrates his second goal of the game with Sidney Crosby and Bill Guerin.

But more to the point, if the NFL season just completed left the Pittsburgh audience with a new appreciation of anything more significant than Troy Polamalu's hair, it was that so-called must-wins need not coincide with so-called big games. The Steelers' must-wins this season were not at Miami on the season's final Sunday, not against Tennessee in the nationally televised prime-time opener, not even in the annual home and home against the readily detestable Baltimore Ravens.

On the contrary, three games against virtually hopeless franchises -- the Kansas City Chiefs, Oakland Raiders and Cleveland Browns -- were their must-wins. You lose any of them, let alone all of them, and you deserve a winter of discontent.

Which is exactly what Steelers coach Mike Tomlin's team did.

But this is about Penguins coach Dan Bylsma's team, and if the two young and successful head coaches are ever going to grace the cover of Pittsburgh Magazine simultaneously again in the near term, the hockey boys can't be in the business of losing to the Islanders, they of the eight losses in their previous 10 games, they of the 9-16-6 road record, they of the combined minus-33, the second worst such figure in the Eastern Conference.

"This is one of those scenarios -- when you're playing a team that is playing on back-to-back nights, when we've had a couple of days rest, when we're at home, you have to play well in situations like that," said Sidney Crosby, who played well without turning up on the scoresheet in a 3-1 victory at Mellon Arena thanks to a couple of aborted two-on-one breaks with Bill Guerin. "In the first period I thought we were a little sloppy."

Yes, about that, what do you figure that was the Penguins were up to when they offered but a single shot in the game's first 9:13, flirting with hockey masochism? Had not goaltender Marc-Andre Fleury stoned Sean Bergenheim on a two-on-one Islanders chance with eight minutes elapsed in the opening period, had not Kris Letang kept a New York rebound out of the cage with some sprawling stick work two minutes later, and had not referee Chris Lee decided after a watching some replays that several Islanders' stuffer attempts failed to cross the goal line, trouble would have had legs.

Lee explained his no-goal call into a faulty microphone that sounded like we were all stuck in the drive-thru line. Yes, that's fine, but can I get an apple pie with that?

Fortunately for the Penguins, the hungriest guy around these days is Evgeni Malkin, who ran his consecutive-games-with-at-least-a-point streak to 11 when he assisted on Chris Kunitz's goal midway in the second, then tipped Sergei Gonchar's shot past Islanders goaltender Dwayne Roloson for a 2-0 Penguins lead at 17:00 of the same period for his 21st goal of the season.

Just as muscular for Bylsma at the moment are his penalty-killers, the successful squelchers of 41 of the past 48 disadvantages include a five-on-three Islanders emergency defused by Matt Cooke, Craig Adams, and Jay McKee.

So suddenly the Penguins were in position to separate themselves from a three-way tie for third place overall in the conference. With barely a quarter of the soon-to-be-interrupted NHL season remaining, the Penguins, Buffalo Sabres and Ottawa Senators remain still virtually ensnared in a 22-game season to avoid finishing fifth, which would risk perhaps the permanent forfeiture of home-ice advantage in the postseason.

Kunitz's second goal of the game forced this must-win into the win column. That's highly recommended.

"In the second and third period I thought we played pretty good," Crosby said. "That's the type of game we have to play, that kind of style, where we're playing hard."

For the record, and among those 22 remaining games, here are the remainder of the Penguins' must-wins by the newfound definition, at least in this view: Friday night at home against the Rangers, at the Rangers March 4, Dallas at home March 6, at Carolina March 11, Carolina at home March 20, Toronto at home March 28, Atlanta at home April 3, the Islanders at home April 8 and on Long Island April 11.

Nine games by themselves that can take them past 90 points. Shame on 'em for six weeks if they don't get there.