5 things to watch for with Penguins in second half of 2024-25 season
From goaltending, to special teams, to the trade market, to Sidney Crosby.
When the Pittsburgh Penguins host the Columbus Blue Jackets on Tuesday night it will officially start the second half of the 2024-25 season.
They are, to this point, probably about where they should be in the standings — a .500 team that is not awful, not a contender and is hanging around on the fringes of the Eastern Conference playoff picture.
They will probably sell in some form or another at the trade deadline.
If they are going to actually steal one of those remaining playoff spots they are probably going to have to play at a points percentage pace between .570 and .660 (or better) the rest of the way. The former would get them to around 87 points, which is what the current Eastern Conference Wild Card cut-off is based on other team’s paces. The latter would get them up to 95 points, which is usually enough to guarantee a playoff spot in any season.
It is asking a lot, but it could be possible. If it is going to happen, a few things need to maintain their current level and a few others need to get better.
So with all of that in mind, here are five key things to watch for with the Penguins in the second half of the season.
1. Goaltending
As has been the case for the better part of the past four or five seasons, goaltending will dictate a lot of what the Penguins are able to do in the standings. To this point, it has not been anywhere near good enough, which actually makes the .500 record and recent surge in the standings even more unexpected. Because the goaltending has stunk. Joel Blomqvist still has the best numbers of any goalie on the team despite the fact he has spent most of the season in the American Hockey League, while the Penguins as a team rank 29th in 5-on-5 save percentage and 26th in all-situations save percentage across the league.
It needs to be better, but I am not sure how it gets better with the current duo. At this point there are no surprises or secrets with Tristan Jarry and Alex Nedeljkovic. This is what they are, and what you see is what you are going to get. The hope for change is finding a taker in a trade for either one, promoting Blomqvist back to the NHL and allowing Sergei Murashov to go from Wheeling (where he is mostly dominating) to Wilkes-Barre/Scranton.
2. Special teams play
Both special teams units have played a significant role in the Penguins’ in-season turnaround, and going back to the night before Thanksgiving game (when this recent turnaround started) both units are among the top-six in the NHL during that stretch.
This is not a particularly dominant 5-on-5 team, so it is going to be pretty important for the power play to keep scoring and the penalty kill to keep teams off the scoreboard.
The power play is especially important because that was one of the biggest factors in last year’s disappointing result. That team was built on the idea the power play could help supplement some of the offense they would be lacking in the bottom-six and it just never happened.
So far this season, it has been there. It has been especially good over the past month-and-a-half. If they are going to hang around in the playoff race, that has to continue.
3. The trade market
Even if the Penguins hang around in the playoff race I do not expect them to be buyers. They are almost certainly going to sell to some degree, and it is just a matter of how much they can move and how much they are willing to move.
Marcus Pettersson, Drew O’Connor and Anthony Beauvillier seem like easy trade targets.
Has Rickard Rakell’s outstanding offensive season so far made his contract movable to the point where they might get good value?
The same question goes for Michael Bunting and his recent surge.
If they do sell will they hoard the incoming assets for future building, or will they turn around and flip them for something else more immediate, kind of like the Washington Capitals have done in recent years?
4. Sidney Crosby’s points
The captain enters the second half of the season with 42 points in 41 games, just over a point per game for the season.
If he maintains that, he breaks Wayne Gretzky’s record for most consecutive seasons averaging more than a point per game.
It might not be the NHL’s most prestigious or well-known record, but it is a testament to long-term dominance and consistency.
5. Owen Pickering
This roster does not have a lot of young players that would seem to have long-term futures with the Penguins at the moment, but Pickering is definitely one of them and the most important at the moment. His rookie season so far has been promising, with flashes of top-four ability but still some moments of, “yeah, that is a rookie right there” mixed in.
His development is going to be significant and one of the more intriguing things to watch regardless of what happens with the aforementioned four things. They need players like him to be NHL players, and good ones. It has been encouraging.