Penguins notebook: Season-long 5-game homestand critical in playoff race

The longest homestand of the season could not have come at a better time for the Pittsburgh Penguins, who, despite more than one extended losing streak this year and several performances unbecoming of a playoff-calibur club, remain squarely in the NHL postseason hunt.

Tuesday’s contest against Eastern Conference cellar dweller Columbus nearly became a new low in a season with more valleys than peaks, but thanks to an improbable rally that saw the Penguins overcome a 4-0 deficit, the first of five straight games at PPG Paints Arena concluded on a positive note.

Up next for the Penguins is a Thursday showdown with the Islanders, followed by visits from the Philadelphia Flyers, New York Rangers and Montreal Canadiens through March 14.

After their 5-4 overtime win over the Blue Jackets, coach Mike Sullivan seemed to draw a line in the sand with regards to the Penguins’ current situation and the necessary steps for the team to improve upon it 63 games into the season.

“There’s a clear understanding of what needs to happen to set ourselves up for success, what that game looks like,” he said. “We’ve got to put that game on the ice consistently, and we’ve got to be committed to it. … We’ve had a lot of conversations. Now it’s about acting. We’ve got to go out and perform.”

As of Wednesday afternoon, the Penguins (32-22-9) held the final wild-card spot in the Eastern Conference with 73 points, trailing the Islanders by a point.

Nipping at the heels of the Penguins in what continues to be an ultra-tight battle for two wild-card positions are Florida (70 points) and Ottawa, Buffalo and Washington (68 points apiece).

Two of the Penguins’ four upcoming home games are against nonplayoff contenders, Philadelphia and Montreal, who sit 14th and 15th, respectively, in the conference.

Thursday’s game against the Islanders and Sunday against the Rangers represent key Metropolitan Division matchups the Penguins would benefit immensely from winning.

“To come home and get a few in a row here is really important,” captain Sidney Crosby said. “We’ve got some big games all the way in, but it’s not too often we get a homestand like this, so we’ve got to make the most of it.”

In three tries so far against the Islanders, the Penguins are winless.

“I think we can learn from the experiences,” Sullivan said. “There’s some things that we did really well that brought us success in those games, and there’s other areas where, if we manage the game better, then, potentially, we could have gotten a different result.

“We understand where we’re at and the importance of these games.”

Heinen contributing

Leading up to the NHL trade deadline, general manager Ron Hextall and Sullivan touched upon the importance of getting more out of the Penguins’ bottom-six forwards, with scoring in particular.

Many of the moves Hextall made before last Friday sought to facilitate exactly that, culminating with the acquisitions of forwards Mikael Granlund and Nick Bonino, both of whom have slid into bottom-six roles vacated when Hextall jettisoned Kasperi Kapanen, Teddy Blueger and Brock McGinn.

Neither Granlund or Bonino has recorded a point. Instead, the Penguins’ bottom six has seen a needed boost from a player who has been in Pittsburgh for the entire campaign: Danton Heinen.

Heinen had a solid start to the season, posting three goals with three assists over the Penguins’ first five games, but as the year went on, his productivity tailed off and he became a semi-regular healthy scratch.

Heinen was a healthy scratch for eight of the Penguins’ first 50 games.

From Jan. 24-26, he recorded four points over two games, but from there, it was nearly a month (Feb. 25) before he was re-inserted into the nightly lineup, which happened presumably out of necessity given that Hextall placed Kapanen on waivers Feb. 24.

The recent gap in ice time has not interrupted Heinen’s productivity, as he has racked up seven points over his last nine games dating to late January.

He scored a critical third-period goal Tuesday night against Columbus to tie the score 4-4, finishing a feed from Rickard Rakell in front of the net.

How much did we enjoy this game-tying goal? A DanTON. pic.twitter.com/iBhJwSwFde

— Pittsburgh Penguins (@penguins) March 8, 2023

“Danton’s a good player,” Sullivan said. “He has real good offensive instincts. … My experience in coaching Danton the last couple of years is he tends to be a streaky scorer. He gets them in bunches, and we’ll see what happens moving forward, but certainly the goal he got (Tuesday) was a big one for us.”

The Penguins utilized the following lines and defensive pairings for Wednedsay’s practice:

59-Jake Guentzel-87-Sidney Crosby-67 Rickard Rakell

16- Jason Zucker-71-Evgeni Malkin-17-Bryan Rust

10-Drew O’Connor-64-Mikael Granlund-77-Jeff Carter/19-Alex Nylander

43-Danton Heinen/25-Ryan Poehling-13-Nick Bonino-15-Josh Archibald

28-Marcus Pettersson-58-Kris Letang

8-Brian Dumoulin-26-Jeff Petry

7-Dimitry Kulikov-44-Jan Rutta

73-P.O Joseph-2-Chad Ruhwedel

Granlund, who missed Tuesday’s game against Columbus because of illness, and Rust, who was scratched for personal reasons and whose wife recently gave birth to a son, returned to practice Wednesday. Poehling, who was placed on long-term injured reserve Tuesday retroactive to Feb. 14, practiced in a full-contact jersey.