PHILADELPHIA -- The Penguins have confronted -- and overcome -- multiple waves of adversity in 2020-21, and have earned an opportunity to claim an East Division championship in the waning days of the regular season.
The rewards for winning the East are obvious: The Penguins would be assured of home-ice advantage for the first two rounds of the playoffs (assuming they'd win the first, of course), which means they would get to open both best-of-sevens with a pair of games at PPG Paints Arena and would have a Game 7 in either of them there, too.
The question, though, is whether winning the East should be their primary focus during the remaining four games, beginning with one against the Flyers Monday at 7:08 p.m. at Wells Fargo Center.
There's rarely, if ever, anything wrong with winning, of course, but some might argue that taking two points out of each of their remaining games should be a secondary concern, that a team whose ultimate objective is to win a Stanley Cup -- and that most certainly is what the Penguins have in mind -- must be able to win on the road, so having home-ice advantage isn't really critical. (The Penguins, for the record, have a home mark of 20-4-2, among the best in the NHL.)
So, should the Penguins emphasize giving big-minutes players, especially those who are on the far side of 30, a reduced workload or even a game or two off, to get them rested for the playoffs and, in the process, reduce the chances of one of them being injured before postseason play begins?
Would it be prudent for Mike Sullivan and his staff do a little experimenting with personnel combinations to see what groupings might have some chemistry if injuries or slumps compel him to shake things up in mid-series?
Mind you, moving players into different roles or giving prominent players a night off should not be construed as conceding two points; teams are forced to get by without valuable contributors all the time (remember Evgeni Malkin and Brandon Tanev?), and coaches tinkering with personnel hardly is unusual.
YOUR TURN: What should be the Penguins' top priority during their final four regular-season games?