Penguins' postseason hopes finally extinguished

Perhaps the only thing sharper than Sidney Crosby’s dagger of a backhander is his comprehensive memory.

Ask him about any random game in November 2008 or some mundane goal a long-departed teammate scored during the late winter of 2014, he can recall seemingly any nugatory detail such as what kind of gloves he was wearing or if a linemate’s family was in the stands that night.

The final game of the 2014-15 regular season is one he has a pretty good recollection of.

Needing a win to reach the postseason, the Pittsburgh Penguins gutted out a narrow 2-0 road victory against a Buffalo Sabres organization blatantly tanking to secure the top overall pick of the upcoming draft (which ended up going to the Edmonton Oilers in the form of superstar forward Connor McDavid).

“I definitely remember having to win that game,” Crosby said in reference that night April. 11, 2015. “It being a pretty close one. ‘Suttsy’ (former Penguins forward Brandon Sutter) got a couple of goals in that game.”

The Penguins’ reward for that victory was a daunting first-round matchup with the New York Rangers, who tidily claimed the series in five games. But for one night in the visiting dressing room at what was then called First Niagara Center in downtown Buffalo, the Penguins rejoiced without a worry.

Eight years later, the Penguins won’t have any such luxury.

On Wednesday, they were formally eliminated from postseason contention for the first time since 2006.

The New York Islanders secured the final wild-card position in the Eastern Conference on Wednesday with a 4-2 home win against the Montreal Canadiens at UBS Arena in Elmont, N.Y.

That renders the Penguins’ regular-season finale, a road contest against the Columbus Blue Jackets on Thursday, meaningless with regard to the playoffs.

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The Penguins had an opportunity to control their own fate as recently as Tuesday, but a 5-2 home loss to the Chicago Blackhawks, one of the NHL’s worst teams, put them at the mercy of the Islanders’ outcome Wednesday.

This brings to an end a streak of 16 consecutive seasons in which the Penguins have qualified for the playoffs. Their most recent season without a trip to the postseason came in 2005-06 during the rookie campaign of an 18-year-old Crosby.

“You know the league is tight, and the way it’s been here the last little bit, you knew it was going to come down to the last game or two,” a 35-year-old Crosby said after Tuesday’s loss. “We got an opportunity (Tuesday) to control our own destiny, and it didn’t work out. We’ve got to find a way to rebound here and find a way to win the next one.”

For a team that invested heavily last offseason in retaining a core group of luminaries and splendid supplements, hoping that its 82nd game of the season would even get them a chance to burrow into the playoffs and potentially get a first-round matchup against the NHL’s best team, the big, bad Boston Bruins, is woefully short of even the base level of any expectations.

Why are the Penguins — blessed with a roster stocked of future enshrines into the Hockey Hall of Fame and All-Stars — on the outside looking in at the last stage of the regular season?

“Consistency I think is the thing that sticks out,” said defenseman Jeff Petry, the team’s most prominent offseason addition last summer. “Whether it’s from game to game or period to period, we know the things that we do well that lead to results more times than not. There’s stretches of games where we were on top of that. And games where the details weren’t as sharp. You can definitely see a difference in the style of play. From games to games or period to period, there’s points throughout the season where the details and our execution weren’t there.”

What kind of lineup the Penguins will have there in Columbus remains to be seen. Coach Mike Sullivan indicated the result of the Canadiens-Islanders matchup will dictate who he dresses.

Even in the face of extirpation from postseason contention, Sullivan prepared his outfit during a practice session Wednesday in Cranberry as if Thursday’s game three hours to the west in Columbus will have gravity.

“We’re all human. We all have emotions,” Sullivan said. “We’ve got to live with those. The other aspect of it is that we’re not out of the playoffs until we’re out of the playoffs. We’ve got to operate on the assumption (Wednesday) that we still have meaningful hockey in front of us.

“We’re hopeful we’ll play a meaningful game in Columbus.”

Seemingly every game is meaningful to the Penguins’ captain, no matter what can or cannot be gained. Presumably, Thursday’s contest will as well, even if his team’s aspirations have been extinguished.

“It’s a situation that you’ve got to make the best of it,” Crosby said. “Prepare the same way today and hope that we get another chance.”