For all of you Pittsburgh Penguins fans out there (including myself) who have been freaking out all season long about your team's plight, remember that the Penguins are clutch in the second half of the season.
What? Examples you say? Of course. TMD: Sports wouldn't print this without examples.
Remember the 2006-07 season, when Evgeni Malkin and Jordan Staal were rookies? Thru 41 games that season the Pens had a 18-16-7 record for a pedestrian 43 points. The Penguins went on a tear through the end of the regular season that year however, going 29-8-4 (62 pts.) the rest of the way for a 19 point improvement (over the team's record during the first half of the season).
Last season (2007-08) they improved to 48 points at the midpoint of the season by going 23-16-2. The Pens improved via trades and Sidney Crosby's return and it showed in the standings. They went 24-11-6 (54 pts.) through the final 41 games of the season en route to the Stanley Cup Finals.
Through the first 41 games of this season Pittsburgh was 20-17-4 for 44 points. The 27 games since have seen the Penguins sport a record of 16-9-2 (34 pts.). They are currently ripping things up again, having won seven straight and nine out of ten. The scariest stat about this year's team is that they haven't scored more than one power play goal in a game since the midway point of the season, a January 6, 2009 win against Atlanta. That will have to change if this team has any delusions of grandeur.
What does all this mean? Well, it lets us know that Pittsburgh doesn't exactly tear it up in the first half of the season. They start out rather slow and are motivated by the trade deadline and the playoff push.
Thank god for the law of averages.
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