(Photo by Jeff Curry/Getty Images)
(1) Is Blake Comeau healthy?
Injuries to Evgeni Malkin and Patric Hornqvist forced Penguins coach Mike Johnston to shuffle lines last week.
Blake Comeau found himself alongside Sidney Crosby and David Perron on the top unit. Â Based on the eye test, Comeau isn’t anywhere close to healthy.
Crosby has been relentless on the forecheck lately. Â He’s creating turnovers and has been instructing Comeau on how to find the soft spots in the offensive zone.
Comeau can’t finish though — he has just one goal in his last 13 games. Â I’d bet he’s playing with some sort of brace after missing 20 games with a broken wrist. Crosby keeps putting the puck on his stick in the slot but Comeau is struggling to even get a shot off in most situations.
The problem is that the narrative around Crosby this season has been strictly linked to his production.
When Crosby was scoring goals and the Penguins were winning games on their recent West coast road swing, no one was talking about his inconsistent (sometimes careless) play on the defensive end of the ice.
When Crosby starts playing well but doesn’t score goals and the Penguins lose to bad teams, undeserved criticism returns.
Crosby’s pass-first mentality means that his production will always be linked to the finishing abilities of his linemates. Â Blake Comeau with one healthy arm won’t help much in that regard.
Fortunately, for Johnston and his Penguins, Comeau has been outworking everyone on the ice and finding other ways to contribute.
This backcheck against Phoenix may have went unnoticed, but that’s what wins playoff games in April:
(2) Do the Penguins have any cap space left?
Christian Ehrhoff was a last minute scratch against Phoenix on Saturday, forcing the Penguins to play with only five defensemen.
Even if Ehrhoff’s status had been known earlier in the day, the Penguins didn’t have cap space to recall a defenseman to replace him.
The CBA allows for emergency recalls when a team falls under 12 forwards, six defensemen, or two goalies, but only when the team still has cap space available.
By my calculations, the Penguins have less than $300k in space at the moment.
In this situation, the CBA dictates that the team without space can still make an emergency recall, but only after they play one game ‘shorthanded’. Â The Penguins obviously did that on Sunday and would be able to make an emergency roster move for Tuesday’s game against St. Louis if Ehrhoff still can’t go.
This is something to keep in mind over the next few weeks as well.
*Update: Pittsburgh demoted Andrew Ebbett and recalled Derrick Pouliot on Tuesday morning.
(3) Would the wild card be a bad thing?
No team in the National Hockey League has an easier remaining schedule than the Pittsburgh Penguins.
They’ll probably settle into the #2 or #3 seed in the Eastern Conference and that means a likely matchup with the New York Islanders.
The Islanders are a better matchup than the New York Rangers or Washington Capitals but — crazy as it sounds — the ideal scenario for Pittsburgh might be to fall to the wild card spot.
Washington currently occupies the first wild card spot, which means they’ll move over to the Atlantic Division bracket with a likely first-round matchup at Montreal.
The Capitals only trail the Penguins by two points after Monday action and it’s not unreasonable to think they could leapfrog Pittsburgh with strong play over the next few weeks.
Montreal and Tampa are great teams, but I don’t think they present the same near-impossible challenge as the Rangers.
New York is big, fast, insanely deep on defense…and that’s before we even get around to discussing Henrik Lundqvist.
Montreal and Tampa are also fast, but neither has the size to give Pittsburgh trouble.
As far as other potential machups on the grid to the right, New York and Boston is actually intriguing. The Bruins are a shell of their former selves, but they could be a sneaky challenge for the Rangers if healthy.
Of course, this all assumes the Ottawa Senators and goalie sensation Andrew Hammond (now 14-0-1) lose a game. Â What a story.
(4) How good are the St. Louis Blues?
Another matchup I’ve been eying in the Western Conference is St. Louis and Chicago.
From a fan perspective, I’d love to see those two teams go head to head again.
Think about this: If the Blues would lose to Chicago, that would mean the Blues have been bounced by the Hawks twice and the LA Kings twice over a four-year stretch. Â That would also put head coach Ken Hitchcock’s job in jeopardy.
Crazy.
St. Louis is an impressively deep franchise that always seems to be churning new prospects into the lineup (maybe thanks to former Assistant GM and current Columbus GM Jarmo Kekäläinen?)
Expectations are high for the Blues though and — as Pittsburgh fans know well — early playoff exits as a high seed inevitably lead to overhaul, justified or not.
This might be the best Blues team I’ve seen though.
Hitchcock demands attention to detail from his players and his teams are unfairly branded with terms such as ‘boring’ and ‘trapping’ dating back to his days in Columbus.
Reality is that he tailors his coaching system to the roster.  In Columbus, that definitely meant trapping and praying for a lucky bounce to win a 2-1 hockey game.
Did you know the Blues are the second highest scoring team in the Western Conference this season?
Me neither, but I totally believe it after watching them.
Their top line of David Backes, TJ Oshie, and Alex Steen grind teams down. Â The ‘second’ line of Vladimir Tarasenko, Jaden Schwartz, and Jori Lehtera takes advantage of softer matchups and has already combined for 70 goals.
Paul Stastny — a regular 75+ point scorer in Colorado — is centering the third line.
And just when you think you get a break with the fourth line, Hitchcock sends Steve Ott and Ryan Reaves over the boards to terrorize opponents on the forecheck.
I won’t even list their top-four defensemen when healthy…
Earlier versions of Hitchcock’s Blues relied on tons of offensive zone time and goals off the cycle to win games.  This year they seem to be scoring a lot more off the rush, led by Tarasenko.
If you watch Tuesday night’s Penguins-Blues game, keep an eye on Tarasenko (#91). He’s only 6 feet tall, but he’s solid like Ovechkin and shifty like Datsyuk.
And if you watch Tuesday night’s game and figure out how to beat the Blues in a seven-game series, let me know.