After having a pretty middling month of November, the Pittsburgh Penguins seem to be back in championship form. On Thursday, the Penguins bested the New York Islanders in overtime by a score of 4-3, winning their sixth game out of their last seven.
Morning Skate: The Penguins were down but not out, and now they’re thriving
Pittsburgh has won six of its last seven games after a downer of a November.
Don Wright-USA TODAY Sports
In a tough Metropolitan Division, this streak from the Penguins has put them back in the conversation. While Pittsburgh was never out of reach in a division where the first and fifth place teams are separated by just one point, the November slump was uncharacteristic from a dominant Penguins team.
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Lace ’em up. Time for the Morning Skate.
For the first time in a long while, the Penguins looked like a beatable hockey team. Their defense was running ragged on the ice, and an offense with some of the best offensive players in Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin had seemingly run cold. Not only that, but Matt Murray had been pretty average in goal with a .906 save percentage before being injured.
Even without Murray, the Penguins once again rallied around a young netminder, this time Tristan Jarry. Phil Kessel has been having a season to remember, with 35 points in 30 games played. Crosby and Malkin, too, have gotten back to form, with the former having eight points in his last five games.
While the Penguins aren’t as strong of a team this year as in their two previous championship winning seasons, it’s safe to say you can’t ever count out a team with that much star power.
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