The week ahead: Big challenges ahead for Penguins

This is going to be a challenging week for the Pittsburgh Penguins, and it might not be the best timing for it.

Injuries to the forward group have taken their toll.

The shine has worn off from Arturs Silovs strong start in net, which could be bringing an end to the goalie rotation.

The Penguins are still in a solid position in the standings, but the Eastern Conference is so bunched up that one day of games can bring major changes to the playoff field. The Penguins have also won just four of their previous 12 games, going 4-5-3 over that stretch. At times they have played significant stretches of games where it should have been good enough to win. At other times they have just been significantly outplayed.

It is not going to get any easier this week with a three-game road trip that is going to take them to the Philadelphia Flyers, Dallas Stars and Tampa Bay Lightning.

This might be the toughest stretch of games they have faced all season.

It starts on Monday with their second-meeting of the season with the Flyers. The first meeting back in October ended in a shootout loss, which is where we really first started to learn their limitations in that event. The Flyers are kind of a weird team right now. They have put together a three-game winning streak coming into the week and have a very solid 14-7-3 record. They defend well. Goaltending has been strong. But their offense is not particularly good. They also have just seven regulation wins in their first 24 games. There are five other teams with exactly seven regulation wins, and six teams that have six regulation wins. That is the bottom of the list in the NHL standings.

By comparison, only four teams in the NHL have more regulation wins than the Penguins 11 regulation wins.

While Pittsburgh has struggled in overtime and the shootout, going 1-5 in games decided beyond regulation, and 0-3 in shootouts, Philadelphia has excelled in those games going 7-3 in games decided beyond regulation and 5-0 in shootouts. That is the difference in the standings, and why losing (or gaining) those extra points is so important when the margins are so thin.

Win the game in regulation.

After playing in Philadelphia the Penguins are going to get probably their two toughest games of the season with Dallas and Tampa Bay.

The Stars, having appeared in three consecutive Western Conference Finals, entered the season as one of the best teams in hockey and have done nothing so far to make anybody think otherwise. They are also entering the week on a roll going 11-2-1 over their previous 14 games. They have three of the top-16 scorers in the NHL in Jason Robertson, Mikko Rantanen and Wyatt Johnston, a legitimate No. 1 defenseman in Miro Heiskanen and strong goaltending. They do everything well and have top-tier talent all over their lineup.

The Penguins have not really played any of the league’s truly top teams this season.

This is going to be their first real test and a real measuring stick game.

The only real advantage the Penguins might have in that game is the fact Dallas has a busy week and will be playing its fourth game in six days during the week. Maybe some fatigue sets in for them.

They follow that game in Dallas with a trip to Tampa Bay to play a Lightning team that has quickly shaken off a slow start. After winning just one of their first seven games, the Lightning have gone 15-3-0 since. There are some depth concerns, but the elite players at the top of the lineup are still very much elite.

The Penguins have recently played relatively well against the Lightning (well, up until the 2024-25 season when Tampa Bay swept the season series) so maybe the matchup is still there. It is going to be a challenge either way.

Until the Penguins get players like Rickard Rakell, Justin Brazeau, and even Filip Hallander back, and until Rutger McGroarty (which should happen on Monday) makes his season debut, they are going to have to find ways to scratch and claw out wins and points. They have mostly still done that to some degree over the past couple of weeks. It is not going to be easy this week with these opponents.

On paper anything more than two points this week should be seen as a successful week. Let us see what they do with it.