Tim Benz: Penguins-Hurricanes regular season battles did little to reveal clues for a potential playoff showdown

Often after Penguins games, head coach Mike Sullivan seems to draw a pretty thick line between the process and the result.

The Penguins may win a game but not necessarily play well en route to victory. Under those circumstances, Sullivan has a hard time hiding his agitation.

After other games, the Pens may lose but they play well along the way. And Sullivan spends more time sticking up for his team than criticizing it.

Which is what makes the Penguins’ three-game regular season series against the Metropolitan Division-leading Carolina Hurricanes (87 points) tough to evaluate.

The second-place Penguins (81 points) lost the first two games. A 4-3 defeat on Feb. 20 in Pittsburgh, with Sidney Crosby hurling a shot on net in the game’s waning moments. Then there was a 3-2 overtime defeat in Raleigh on March 4.

Sunday, the Penguins managed at least one positive outcome against Carolina in the regular season. A 4-2 victory that was 2-1 Pens until the 18:21 mark of the third period when Crosby potted the first of the team’s two empty-netters.

Three close games. Three contests that were in the balance until the final horn. None of which, when tied together, did much to provide any clarity for how things might go if these teams were to meet in a best of seven playoff series.

“I thought our start was a little bit better,” Penguins forward Brain Boyle said of the win. “But there were stretches where we still wanted to be better. A little bit more consistent, and drive play. But they are tough. They are in your face. And they try to take away what we do well. … Still a lot of room for improvement I think.”

To Boyle’s point, look at how the Penguins won Sunday. They got two points in the victory, yes.

Yet they were outshot 43-22. As they were in the Game 2 loss in Raleigh 42-24. The Penguins were hit with 11 giveaways on the final stat sheet. The Canes had none.

But the Pens also had a 13-3 advantage in takeaways. They won the faceoff battle for the first time in the three games, securing 60% of draws (37-25). They blocked 17 shots to the Hurricanes’ seven. The Pens only blocked five in Game 1. They stayed out of the box, drawing just one penalty, whereas the Hurricanes won the second game in large part because Kris Letang was sent to the box for a retaliation penalty against Vincent Trocheck in overtime.

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“I just think we were able to get a couple more opportunities,” Penguins goaltender Tristan Jarry said after the win. “I think the shots may have said something different. But I think we were able to get to the net and capitalize on our opportunities.”

For Sullivan, there were some nuances that may have looked better for his team on the stat sheet. But the overall picture of the game wasn’t painted all that differently.

Nor was he expecting that to be the case.

“There is so much familiarity on both sides,” Sullivan said after Sunday’s game. “I think they are very familiar with how we are trying to play and the subtleties of our game. And I feel we know their game pretty well. They are one of the top teams in the league for a reason. … They are hard to play against. I don’t think there are any secrets out there.”

If anything, the further along we get in the NHL schedule, the thicker in the weeds we get when trying to split hairs between the Penguins and their Eastern Conference rivals.

The razor’s edge nature of Pens and Canes speaks for itself after those three games. The Penguins and Rangers have played each other once, with the Penguins winning a 1-0 nail-biter. The Penguins have played Tampa Bay three times with Penguins beating the Lighting 6-2 and 5-1 in their building, with Tampa boat-racing the Penguins 5-1 in Pittsburgh.

The Pens are 1-1-1 versus the Washington Capitals. They are also 1-1-1 against the Florida Panthers with all three games decided by one goal.

So … yeah. You try to figure out the Penguins’ place in the Eastern Conference hierarchy. Go ahead.

To me the whole conference is black and white. Eight teams in the playoff mix with 74 points or more. Eight teams out of it with 63 points or less.

But within the “haves” of this “haves and have nots” discussion, everyone is living in the gray. For as much as we want to make a declaration as to why “Team X” will surely beat “Team Y” in a best of seven, but “Team Y” could clearly knock off “Team Z,” no such blueprint exists.

I guess we’re just going to have to play the postseason and figure it out then, huh?

That’s something Sullivan-coached Penguins teams thrived at as recently as 2017. It’s something they’ve been terrible at for the last three years.

So, much like the present, don’t expect to find any clarity from history either.