The Penguins had been 6-1-2 and riding high after a wildly successful four-game sweep through Canada ... and then the New York Islanders came to town.
That was Oct. 30, and a 6-3 loss followed. Two nights later in Brooklyn, Thomas Greiss poke-checked the puck off Sidney Crosby's stick in a 3-2 overtime loss.
Well, over the last 35 days and 15 games, the Penguins have won just five times and are now 11-10-5 with 27 points.
The good news is that, thanks to three wins in their last five games, the Penguins are just two points behind the third-place Islanders and a spot in the Eastern Conference playoff field.
The bad news is that the Penguins will have to face these same Islanders twice in the next five days, beginning tonight at PPG Paints Arena.
Needless to say, tonight has taken on far greater significance than most would have imagined for a game in early December between these two teams with very different recent pasts.
"They're all big games, that's just the reality of where we're at," said Mike Sullivan, who has never had a losing season against the Islanders but could with a loss tonight. "This is an important game for us. The Islanders are a good team. They're a divisional rival. We're going to battle with them all year."
Despite their struggles in goal and inconsistencies elsewhere, most -- if not all -- still expect the Penguins to finish in the top eight in the conference by mid-April.
The Islanders? Most assumed they'd be contending for Jack Hughes, but not a playoff spot after John Tavares went home to Toronto in free agency.
And yet the Islanders are still in the thick of things. In fact, all 16 teams in the conference can still harbor playoff aspirations over a quarter of the way through the season. The Flyers and Devils are bringing up the rear but they were playoff teams a year ago and are just three and four points behind the Penguins.
"Every team in this league is good," Jack Johnson was telling me. "It's part of the parity of the whole league. It's what the salary cap was designed to do. The way the league is set up, no one's really running away with it. I think it's good for hockey, good for fans. Makes it a dogfight all the way through."
In a bit of an odd scheduling quirk, after Monday night's game at Nassau Coliseum (the Islanders are playing a handful of games this season on Long Island), the Penguins won't face them again this regular season. That will make it four games against the Islanders before the Penguins play their first game against the Rangers on Jan. 2 at Madison Square Garden.
Not that the Penguins will complain about not having to face the Islanders again.
Though they are 28th on the power play (15.0 percent) and 18th on the penalty kill (78.0), the Islanders have the same plus-2 goal differential as the Penguins.
Sullivan points out the structure that the Islanders have been playing with under Barry Trotz, who led the Capitals to the Stanley Cup last season by first eliminating the Penguins in the second round. Save for Mathew Barzal, who will skate on a line with former Penguin Tom Kuhnhackl, the Islanders aren't the sexiest team. But they are opportunistic.
And as the Penguins found out twice in late October, they can make you pay for small mistakes.
"I think when you look at the rosters at the beginning of the year, people make assumptions, but I think that at the end of the day, it's a work ethic thing," Riley Sheahan was telling me. "Each team has a lot of talent. Teams just build chemistry and work hard and can build some momentum. I think you're seeing that now with them."
THE ESSENTIALS
THE INJURIES
• Penguins: Dominik Simon, forward, is expected to miss his first game with an upper body injury sustained Tuesday. ... Matt Murray, goalie, is out longer term with a lower body injury. …Cullen, center, is out longer term with a lower-body injury. ... Both Cullen and Murray skated on their own again on Thursday prior to their teammates. ... Justin Schultz, defenseman, is expected to miss four months after fracturing his leg Oct. 13 in Montreal.
• Islanders: Andrew Ladd, forward, is on IR with a lower body injury. He's been out since Nov. 15, missing nine games.
THE SKATE
• Tonight's game begins a busy stretch of 10 games in 17 days. Sullivan says he and his staff have a plan in place to accommodate the schedule.
"We just have to do our best to manage minutes as best we can game to game so we can sustain competitive play and performance, but at the same time we're trying to win each game as it comes," he said.
• Casey DeSmith was the first goalie off the ice and will make his third straight start.
• Sidney Crosby, Evgeni Malkin, Phil Kessel, Patric Hornqvist, Tanner Pearson and Brian Dumoulin did not take the ice Thursday morning after a full practice yesterday. It might have been the most lightly attended skate so far this season.
• Sullivan said that Justin Schultz has been around the team and in team meetings. He is progressing as expected.
• It would appear the Penguins will keep the same defense pairs that earned them a win over the Avalanche on Tuesday. That means that Marcus Pettersson will play with Johnson. Juuso Riikola and Chad Ruhwedel will be the healthy scratches.
• With Simon expected out of the lineup, Garrett Wilson will draw back in the lineup for his first game since Nov. 28 at Colorado.
THE OTHER SIDE
• The Islanders also held an optional skate with about a dozen or so players taking the ice.
• Though his team swept their home-and-home series against the Penguins earlier this season, Trotz isn't expecting to take four out of four points over the next five days. He says the Penguins are a better team now thanks to the adjustments Sullivan made to his team's zone exits.
"We were able to take advantage," he said. "I think the game in Pittsburgh, everything we sort of shot seemed to be in the back of the net. The real true game was back home and that ended up being in overtime. Some of the things we learned in the past about them: If you want to trade chances, they can make you pay. I think they've made some subtle changes in their game. They're not as loose as they were earlier in the year. They've tightened some areas, a little tweak here and there. But, at the end of the day, their top guys carry their team."
• One of the Penguins' top guys is Kessel, obviously. The power play runs through Kessel, according to Trotz. It was his Capitals who were able to neutralize, if not eliminate, both during last year's playoff series. So if the Islanders' PK looks familiar, it should.
"The NHL team that wins the Stanley Cup, everyone seems to copycat the best power play," he said. "Teams will study them. The coaching here at this level, (they) spend the whole summer dissecting the best power plays in the league and best penalty killing in the league and systematically what gave them trouble and why. It keeps evolving."
On Nov. 1, Josh Bailey became one of the seven players to score a shorthanded goal against the Penguins this season.
• Robin Lehner, out with a lower body injury after suffering a "tweak" on Nov. 29, skated on Thursday but will not dress tonight. Christopher Gibson will serve as the backup to Thomas Greiss.
• Luca Sbisa and Ross Johnson will be scratches.
THE COMBINATIONS
• Here's a look at the Penguins' lines and pairs based on what was seen in practice Wednesday:
Guentzel — Crosby — Rust
Pearson — Malkin — Hornqvist
Aston-Reese — Brassard — Kessel
Sheahan — Grant — Wilson
Dumoulin — Letang
Pettersson — Johnson
Maatta — Oleksiak
• These are the Islanders lines and pairs. Note: Bailey and Kuhnhackl have flipped places for tonight:
Lee -- Nelson -- Eberle
Beauvillier -- Barzal -- Kuhnhackl
Bailey -- Filppula -- Komorov
Martin -- Cizikas -- Clutterbuck
Leddy -- Boychuk
Hickey -- Pulock
Pelech -- Mayfield
THE SCHEDULE
Faceoff tonight is at 7:08 p.m. at PPG Paints Arena. The Penguins will practice Friday at noon in Cranberry before leaving for Ottawa where they'll face the Senators at 7:08 p.m. on Saturday.
THE COVERAGE
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