The Week Ahead: This Could Be The Pivotal Week For The Penguins Playoff Push

The Pittsburgh Penguins have had tougher stretches of games during the 2025-26 season in terms of their opponents. They may not have had a more important stretch of games than the one they are facing this week.

They have five games between Monday and next Sunday, and those games will go a long way toward determining their chances of making the Stanley Cup Playoffs.

Get your minds right, because this is about to be a massive week of hockey.

It all begins on Monday night with what might be, to this point, the biggest game of the Penguins season when they visit the New York Islanders.

This is the game that has been circled for some time now, and the winner is going to put itself into a great position when it comes to earning a playoff spot. The Penguins enter the day one point behind the Islanders for the second playoff spot in the Metropolitan Division, while also still having a game in hand. If the Penguins can win this game in regulation it would help them put a little more distance between themselves and the teams on the outside of the playoff picture, while also moving them ahead of the Islanders for the second spot in the division (at least for the time being).

Long Island has been an incredibly difficult place for the Penguins to win over the years, and they already lost their first game of the season there this season in overtime.

The Islanders are a difficult team to really get a lock on. They do not have a lot of star power at forward. Their offense is not really great, averaging just 2.86 goals per game, ranking them 22nd in the NHL and near the bottom among playoff contenders. While their goals against numbers are strong, all of their defensive metrics are average at best, and bad at worst. They are 29th in the NHL in expected goals against per 60 minutes. 27th in scoring chances against per 60 minutes and 31st in high-danger scoring chances against per 60 minutes.

They give up A LOT.

The reason it does not show up in actual goals is very simple: Starting goalie Ilya Sorokin has not only played like a Vezina Trophy front-runner, he has played at a potential MVP level. He steals games regularly.

In other words, it is your typical NewYork Islanders team that is annoyingly frustrating to play against. You will get chances. You might tilt the ice on them. But because their goalie is better than most other goalies in the league and can mask all of those issues, it simply never matters.

They also have an immediate superstar in No. 1 overall pick Matthew Schaefer who is running away with the Calder Trophy race. Those two guys have put the Islanders right in the thick of the playoff race. Winner of this game gets the second place spot in the Metropolitan Division. Loser is back on the playoff bubble. It is an absolutely massive four-point game.

As if that game is not big enough, the Penguins follow that on Tuesday night with another massive game in the Eastern Conference playoff race when they return home against the Detroit Red Wings. The Red Wings enter the week two points out of a playoff spot in the Eastern Conference, and have really struggled over the past couple of months. They are just 7-10-3 in their past 20 games going back to the end of January, and have dealt with some significant injuries along the way to some of their top centers. They are also an incredibly top-heavy team.

Their top-four players (Dylan Larkin, Lucas Raymond, Alex DeBrincat and Moritz Seider) have been outstanding for most of the season, with Seider playing like a legitimate Norris Trophy candidate. But there is a huge drop-off in talent and production beyond that quartet.

That is especially true on defense.

When Seider is on the ice during 5-on-5 play the Red Wings are outscoring teams by a 64-46 margin with a 56.7 percent expected goals share.

When Seider is not on the ice during 5-on-5 play the Red Wings are being outscored by a 60-93 margin with only a 45.6 percent expected goals share.

Seider can take over a game. The Red Wings are also extremely vulnerable when he is not on the ice.

The Penguins have won the first two games between the two teams this season, including a 4-1 win in Detroit in late December that might have been the Penguins best, most complete defensive game of the season.

On Thursday the Penguins play what is probably their toughest game of the week when they travel to play the Tampa Bay Lightning. The Lightning have an MVP-front runner in Nikita Kucherov (who has missed some time this week), a top-tier goalie in Andrei Vasilevskiy and a collection of front-line players that still make up a Stanley Cup contending core.

One player the Penguins may not see in that game is defenseman Victor Hedman who stepped away from the team this past week due to a personal matter.

Their playoff spot is mostly set, but they are playing for seeding.

The Penguins always seem to match up well with the Lightning, and have earned three out of a possible four points against them in their first two games this season, including a 4-3 win in Tampa Bay.

The week then concludes on Saturday and Sunday with a back-to-back, at home, against the defending back-to-back Stanley Cup champion Florida Panthers in both games. While that may have looked like an extremely daunting stretch early in the season, or before the season, it does not seem to be as much right now.

The Panthers are not going to the playoffs. They are completely decimated by injuries right now and are playing a ton of AHL call-ups. They have won just seven of their past 20 games entering the week, and were absolutely humiliated on Saturday against the Islanders, jumping out to an early 2-0 lead and then allowing five consecutive goals in the second period on their way to a 5-2 defeat.

Playing the same team two games in a row, and on two days in a row, is a challenge. Especially when it is at the end of a five-game in seven-day stretch with two back-to-backs in that. But that Florida team is not particularly good right now, and the Penguins are getting them at home.

Overall there are 10 points up for grabs this week. I want to see the Penguins get at least six of them. That should be doable. That should be manageable. Anything after that is a bonus. You will hear a lot of talk about how Monday’s game is a must-win given the standings, but I am not going to go that far with it. The Monday game against the Islanders is probably a must-win if you want to secure the second-spot in the Metropolitan Division. It is not a must-win when it comes to securing a playoff spot.

If you can get at least six points this week that puts you at 94 points going into the final week of the regular season where you would have four games against the New Jersey Devils, Washington Capitals, Washington Capitals and St. Louis Blues. In my view, 98 points is still going to be enough (the current cut-off line given everybody’s paces is 97 points, and as these teams play each other, and somebody has to lose, I suspect that could even drop by a point or two). You would then need two wins out of that stretch to get there. That is also doable. That is also very manageable.

The big X-factor in all of this will be the potential availability of captain Sidney Crosby and forward Evgeni Malkin. Both players practiced on Sunday, which is a good sign. Both players are making the trip to New York. Which is also a good sign. Until they are both back, however, it is all just guess-work and speculation.

The Penguins have held their own without one or both players so far this season. They could really use them right now in these games given how tight the standings are and how important these games and points are.