Penguins get back on track, keep playoff hopes alive with win over Sharks

It's a start.

The Penguins' 6-3 win over the Sharks at PPG Paints Arena on Thursday night was a meaningful one. It snapped a four-game skid, and the Penguins scored three times as many goals in this game as they did in their previous four games combined. 

More importantly, the two points earned went a long way toward keeping the Penguins' playoff hopes alive. Coupled with some help around the league in the games involving other teams in the hunt, the Penguins came out of Thursday night only five points back of the final wild card spot. Five points, with 17 games left on the schedule. While it's still going to be an uphill climb to finish the season, with five teams standing between the Penguins and being in a playoff position, it's not an insurmountable climb by any means.

"The reality is we're still in it," Mike Sullivan said of the playoff picture after the win. "That's the conversation that we've had with the group almost daily, is we've got to control what we can. We've got to try to stay in the race."

The win over the Sharks was a game the Penguins should have won. This is the team at the very bottom of the league's standings, even further depleted by recent injuries, illness, and selling of assets at the trade deadline. It wasn't a perfect win, either. But it's a start, and it was definitely needed for morale purposes after a challenging stretch.

"It's been a struggle to score goals the last few," Drew O'Connor said. "So to score six, I think, feels pretty good. But it just feels good to get back into the win column."

The Penguins were outscored 17-2 in their last four games. Regardless of the opponent, they just needed to get back to scoring some goals. And they got some contributions from those who aren't the usual suspects. 

Noel Acciari opened the scoring in the first period with his fourth goal of the year, winning the faceoff then quickly getting to the slot to deflect Erik Karlsson's shot through traffic:

The Penguins got another fourth-line goal in the second period from Jeff Carter, who got to the net-front and picked up the loose puck from Emil Bemstrom's wraparound attempt for his ninth goal of the season:

The fourth goal and game-winner came from John Ludvig, earning his second NHL goal:

"We just got it low to high, and we had a bunch of bodies at the net," Ludvig said. "P.O (Joseph) made a nice pass over to me, and I just tried to make a move and get it on net."

The Penguins got two more goals from the second line that were also the product of going to the net or creating traffic in front. Evgeni Malkin's tally was off of a rebound attempt from an O'Connor shot:

Then Rickard Rakell's goal was the product of a deflection from the slot:

Bryan Rust's empty-net goal capped off the win.

The six-goal output was encouraging despite it coming against the lowly Sharks and their rookie goaltender Magnus Chrona. For one, depth scoring hasn't been easy to come by this season, and to get a pair of goals from fourth-line players and the go-ahead goal from a third-pairing defenseman was huge. But it was also the way the goals were scored.

After Sunday's 4-0 shutout loss to the Oilers, Reilly Smith acknowledged the lack of (and need for) real second-chance opportunities. They weren't getting those shots off rebounds, partly because there wasn't often anyone there to even pick those opportunities up.

Rakell said the Penguins' focus going into Thursday's game was to get more bodies to the net-front to create rebounds. Sullivan said that was a focus in the video meetings that morning, showing players videos of themselves from earlier in the year when being "hungry in the blue paint" has paid off for them. The message was received.

"I thought we did a much better job tonight just as far as the net traffic and making the goalie's sight lines difficult," Sullivan said. "I just think that's a focus that we need to have consistently moving forward. I thought the guys did a really good job tonight."

It doesn't matter if it's against a team out of playoff contention like the Sharks, or one of the Eastern Conference rivals the Penguins are competing with for a spot. That's how a lot of goals are scored in the league, and it'll pay off regardless of the opponent.

There was still room for improvement in other areas of the game that have troubled the Penguins as of late (or longer). The Penguins only had two power-play opportunities and failed to score on both, despite the Sharks having the league's 30th-ranked penalty-kill. The Penguins only recorded two shots on goal total on the power play, and allowed a Mikael Granlund partial breakaway that resulted in Granlund hitting a post. Sidney Crosby -- who was in great spirits that morning, even when discussing his goal drought -- still didn't score and had his goalless streak extend to 10 games. The Penguins allowed a pair of late-period goals, as the Sharks scored within the last 90 seconds of both the first and second frames. It also wasn't a great start to the game for anyone, either. It took the Penguins over seven minutes to register a shot on goal, while the Sharks recorded four in that time. The Penguins were careless with the puck, and didn't come out with the pressure needed to start the game.

It wasn't a perfect game. But the elements that were encouraging, like the depth contributions and commitment to getting bodies to the front of the net and creating traffic, can go a long way over these next 17 games.

"Hopefully we can build off this," Ludvig said. "We still have a lot of hockey left. We should take confidence from this game and bring it into our next one."