Pittsburgh Penguins and the Playoff Bracket

Playoff brackets are locked in and the first round of games has begun. Based on what we’ve seen from the Pens, will your brackets stay the course?

With one playoff win behind us, the Pittsburgh Penguins have gotten off to a strong start in the postseason. The Pens overpowered the New York Rangers 5-2 on home ice.

The team exceeded all expectations last night, winning in part thanks to surprising bursts of skill and a little bit of luck. While the Pens probably would have still won if Henrik Lundqvist had not been injured in the first period, his injury opened the floodgates and could have major implications on this series.

Obviously, it’s never good to see anyone get hurt. It’s all but impossible to predict injuries or a timeline to return – and those surprising changes can alter a team’s entire postseason run. For the Rangers, Lundqvist’s injury may be a difficult obstacle to overcome.

It’s pretty important that goalies are able to see, and given that he’s now seeing a specialist for swelling around his eye that ability is probably not at its peak.

New York’s captain, Ryan McDonagh, was going to be out of the first round anyway with a broken hand. That was common knowledge. But this is a curveball.

We’ve run our discussion of the Penguins’ injuries into the ground but there are new developments every day. At practice this morning, Evgeni Malkin joined the team in a full-contact jersey and he shot on Marc-Andre Fleury, back in goal. Beau Bennett and Bryan Rust were also practicing with the team, while Olli Maatta hopped back into the lineup last night.

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For the Pens, things can only get better; for the Rangers, things may be trending downward. Take this with a grain of salt, because it’s only been one game so far, but these are important factors that shouldn’t be overlooked. The Pens had a slow start yesterday but put the pedal to the metal as the game went on.

So, now that we’ve seen one game and our playoff brackets are officially locked in, how are you feeling? For me, the biggest question in making my bracket was who would be in net for Pittsburgh. I was worried about the Pens making it through the first round without Fleury or even Matt Murray in net.

Thank you, Jeff Zatkoff, for making me eat my words last night. I could not have been happier to be proved wrong.

In case you were wondering, this is how my bracket shaped up. Perhaps hypocritically, I named it “Pengwinning” but don’t have the Penguins winning. (Hint, hint, boys: if you wanted to prove me wrong again here that would be amazing.)

Pengwinning Bracket /

Let’s ignore all my game counts and the final shot count because I’m really never good at guessing those. But on the other hand, I’m feeling pretty good about my bracket even though only three playoff games have been completed.

More than anything, I’m pleasantly surprised. I love how last night’s game turned out for the Penguins, despite that lackluster beginning and the plot twists we saw. If any Rangers fan asks me, I’m going to say that I was 100% confident in the Penguins the whole time (which is… mostly true).

But what about you? How far do you have the Penguins going in your own bracket? Has the one game we’ve seen so far changed your opinion of that?

Again, it’s early. So early that it’s hard to prognosticate anything about this admittedly fluky sport where anything can happen. But it’s always worth trying to gaze into the crystal ball, especially when there’s bragging rights involved.

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