Apologies for the later post today. It was a great week for my sports teams. The Penguins swept a 3-game West Coast road trip with victories over the Sharks, Ducks, and Kings, before returning home to shut out the Sabres. The Steelers inexplicably won another game despite being out-gained, beating the Packers 23-19. Pitt men’s basketball started the season 2-0 with dominant wins over North Carolina A&T and Binghamton, and at the time of writing are up 10 at halftime against Florida Golf Coast University. Pitt football was, well, Pitt football. Manchester City and Chelsea played an instant Premier League classic, ending in a 4-4 draw.
Today, I want to discuss the Penguins. Heading into their 3-game West Coast trip, they were 3-6-0. 6 points through 9 games is not the recipe for making the playoffs. They had shown little-to-no consistency in their first nine games, mixing in shut-outs with games where they conceded five goals. The team was ridiculously frustrating to watch. Dominating play but running into hot goaltenders, giving up a short-handed goal as time expires, the list goes on.
That all changed on November 4th. The Penguins were in San Jose taking on the Sharks, an early candidate for one of the worst teams in the history of the NHL. What transpired in that game could prove to be a turning point for the season. The Pens slotted ten goals past the Sharks’ net-minders. TEN. Regardless of the opponent’s quality, that is an insane feat. A 10-2 victory at SAP Center that night laid the groundwork for the rest of the trip.
The next game was at the Honda Center against the Anaheim Ducks. Tristan Jarry (who left the game injured) and Magnus Hellberg (cool name!) combined for a shut out against the team that broke the Pens’ hearts eight days prior on the aforementioned short-handed goal as the clock ran out.
Jarry missed the next game against the LA Kings, but that did not matter. Bryan Rust scored TWO goals in overtime (the first of which was obviously disallowed) to triumph, solidifying all six points from the trip.
Oftentimes, one will say that the first game after a West Coast trip is very difficult. The players are jet-lagged and there is a sense of a let-down, a false sense of security from returning to the comforts of the home arena. That proved to not be the case against Buffalo. The Penguins dominated a Sabres team that is known for their offense (see Tage Thompson for exhibit A), holding them scoreless for the entire sixty minutes. Not only did Jarry record a shut out, the offense showed up and scored 4.
It may be too early in the season to discuss a proverbial “turning point”, but that West Coast sweep proved to be just what the doctor ordered. It would appear that, sometimes, getting away from the home crowd, the local media, and the always-unsatisfied yinzers can have its benefits. When a team is doing poorly, they hear about it constantly in Pittsburgh–except for the Pirates, of course. Nothing needs to be said about them. They know they are horrible–so it can only be a good thing to travel to a different time zone and just play your brand of hockey without the outside noise.
I am not sure what the next couple weeks have in store for this hockey club, as there are tough games looming–New Jersey, Carolina, Vegas, and the Rangers are all on the horizon–but one thing is for certain: that road trip may have saved the season.