Pittsburgh Penguins: March of the Penguins

Most people are familiar with March of the Penguins the film. Most Pittsburgh Penguins fans are familiar with a slightly different March of the Penguins.

After the Pittsburgh Penguins 15-0-0 perfect March of 2013, fans and sports media noticed that the Penguins had a penchant for success in the last full month of the NHL season. Heck, it was only the previous year that the Pens won 11 of 15. Not a record to shake a stick at. But toward the end of the Bylsma years (notably, after the 2014 Olympics’ disastrous effect on Bylsma’s success and reputation) the Penguins had a couple flat Marches, and the prevalence of the term dropped off.

Looking at the standings recently, I was struck by a month that featured winning streaks of three and five games. This made me want to take another look at how the month of March had treated the Penguins. Specifically, I had two questions:

• How good were the Penguins this month, actually?
• Are the Penguins really that good in March?

So, I brushed the dust off of a decade’s worth of win-loss records and sought to put some numbers behind those questions.

How good were the Penguins in March 2017, actually?

I know shootout losses on consecutive nights and the 4-1-3 record over the last ten games have us feeling a little frustrated right now–especially in what seemed to be the heat of the President’s Trophy race. But let’s take a quick step back for a second. Here’s the Penguins’ record for the month of March 2017:

Those are pretty good numbers, even when compared to other top teams like Columbus (10-4-2), Washington (9-5-1) and Edmonton (9-3-1).  Even with the injury struggles and the recent slide, it’s their second best month this season and good enough to have them competing for home ice in the playoffs.

But despite the success, or perhaps because of it, their record of the last month is still not leaving me satisfied. Which leads me to my second question:

Pittsburgh Penguins

Are The Penguins Really That Good In March?

Thanks to a dominant core and the stand-up performances from guys from Dupuis to Guentzel, the Penguins have been a good team over the last decade, arguably one of the best in the NHL. And along with that has come a steady pace of wins. So it makes sense that the Penguins would tend to perform well in any given month.

To answer this question, I wanted to have a way to compare the Penguins historic success in each of the seven months in the NHL regular seasons. There is a lot of success over the course of 11 consecutive playoff-worthy seasons, and I needed a way to say if and when that success was particularly common.

So, I set a standard for a great month: any calendar month where the Penguins averaged 1.5 points per game or higher. For context, averaging 1.5 points per game over an entire season would amount to 123 points, a number not seen since the ‘05-06 season. An average that high over the span of a few weeks would also be a clear indicator of sustained dominance.

The Modern Era

I then applied that standard to the past 11 regular seasons, the Penguins current playoff streak and “Modern Era”. In the last 11 regular seasons, the Penguins have had 12 great months. Five of those occurred in March. Take a look at the numbers:

October1November1December2January0February0March5April3*

You can see that there have been years of scattered greatness in the early months of the season, but the biggest chunk of the Pens’ shining moments have come in March. I’m even tempted to discount the apparent April success, since in none of the Penguins’ 3 great Aprils did the team play more than 5 games.

So, yes, the Penguins really are that good in March.