Penguins fall short of playoffs, but find 'something to take from' late push

ELMONT, N.Y. -- Penguins players gathered in their Long Island hotel rooms on Tuesday evening. The coaching staff gathered in their own room, glued to a pair of TVs ... other than when Mike Sullivan took some breaks to pace back and forth in the hallway.

The Penguins weren't in control of their destiny entering Game 82 of the season here in Elmont, N.Y. on Wednesday. They needed help in Tuesday's games in the form of losses by the Capitals and Red Wings, and the Penguins' players and coaches were anxiously watching to find out if the regular-season finale against the Islanders would become do-or-die or completely meaningless.

That help didn't come. The Capitals beat the Flyers 2-1, clinching the second wild card spot. The Red Wings won their game too, 5-4 in a shootout, but they were already eliminated.

"It was a rollercoaster," Drew O'Connor told me after the Penguins' morning skate Wednesday of the games that decided their fate the night before. "It looked bad. Then it looked good. Then it looked bad. Obviously disappointing the way it ended up, but that's how it goes. When you don't control your own destiny, you leave yourself open to that kind of thing happening."

For the second consecutive season, the Penguins will just barely miss the playoffs. The circumstances are a lot like they were last year, in a way -- they needed help from another team going into Game 82, they didn't get it, and it made that last game hollow. 

It's a disappointment to miss the playoffs regardless. But this season certainly carries a different feeling. Last year, the Penguins were in the fight all season, right until the very end. They were in control of their fate and only needed to beat the two worst teams in the league -- the Blackhawks and Blue Jackets -- to solidify their spot. They beat neither, and fell out.

These Penguins were written off long ago. For a long while, it looked like the only thing they'd contend for this spring was a shot at the first overall pick in the draft lottery. But an outstanding 8-1-3 run over the last three and a half weeks got them back in the fight. Nobody outside that locker room thought that they would have been playing meaningful hockey this late in the season. But they almost did it. There's a little pride in that, a little optimism about what it could mean for this team going into next season.

"This last stretch, the chemistry and how we played was how we thought we were going to play before the season," Rickard Rakell said. "We found it too late. It gets you excited, but also it's devastating at the same time to have felt what it could have been. If we would have made it, we had the feeling that we could beat anybody."

That "too late" is the story of the season. The Penguins started to show signs of life after their awful two-game trip to Dallas and Denver on March 22 and 24. But if you're looking to pinpoint when the real turnaround started, it was that April 1 and 2 back-to-back against the Rangers and Devils on the road. Several players on the team were hit hard by the stomach bug sweeping the locker room. But they put together a convincing win against the league-best Rangers, and it started with defending hard. The next night, with it being the second half of a back-to-back with players still sick, they didn't have it to start against the Devils and trailed by three goals entering the third. But they showed resilience and scored five in the third period. It wasn't a dominating win like their win over the Rangers. But it was a character win, one that seemed to bode well for the group had they made the playoffs. The run continued from there.

Evgeni Malkin stated the obvious Monday, acknowledging that "if we played like this the whole year, we'd probably make the playoffs." That might be an undersell -- if the Penguins played the way they did in the last month the way they did all season, they'd be comfortably in a playoff spot.

What took so long?

I asked Sullivan after the skate on Wednesday, and he said he didn't quite have an answer and needed more time to think about it. I asked Karlsson the same thing, and he called it the "million-dollar question."

"It's unfortunate," Karlsson said. "It's easier to sit here now and pinpoint specifics and games here and there. But at the end of the day, we didn't continuously throughout the year play good enough hockey to put ourselves in a position to make the playoffs. That's unfortunate. And it sucks, because we underachieved this year, and we have a much better team than we put on."

Lars Eller pointed to night when the Penguins were playing well and looked to be on track for two points, but couldn't close out games. He didn't name specifics, but there's no shortage of options: Jan. 20, Penguins were in Vegas and up 2-0 going into third. They lost 3-2 in regulation. On March 2 in Calgary, they were up 3-1 over the Flames with 10 minutes left and lost 4-3 in regulation. On March 24 in Denver, they led 4-0 during the second intermission but blew the lead over the course of the second half of the game and lost 5-4 in overtime. On March 30 in Columbus, they were up 3-1 over the Blue Jackets with 11 minutes left and lost 3-2 in shootout.

A single additional point gained from any of those games would have the Penguins still in contention and entering a must-win game against the Islanders

"When you're talking about one or two points, there's a lot of different games you look at or instances," Sidney Crosby said. "It's hard to turn one or two points and magnify that into what the reason is (for missing the playoffs) necessarily, but there's probably different things. I think the obvious one is just, multiple games where we had leads and we ended up not even getting points."

There are positives to take from this season, things that are encouraging for next season. Younger players like O'Connor, Valtteri Puustinen and P.O Joseph took steps and reached new heights. Rookies like Jack St. Ivany and Ryan Shea broke into the league and actually improved the Penguins' roster. Other young players -- like John Ludvig, Jonathan Gruden, Sam Poulin -- saw NHL time and at times made a positive impact. That's all encouraging.

"It's an essential element of trying to stay competitive as an organization, is having an influx of younger players that can come in and assume impact roles that help the team stay competitive and win," Sullivan said. "There's a number of guys that I think we're excited about their overall growth and development. That speaks well for the team moving forward."

Then there's the core. Last season was the first in which Crosby and Malkin both played all 82 games, and this season they were able to do that again, with Letang and Karlsson joining them from the core group of players. The core was healthy and available the entire year. There were definitely stretches and instances where Malkin, Letang and Karlsson weren't their best. But Crosby? His 42 goals is the third-best of his entire career, and his 92 points has him comfortably at a point-per-game season for the 19th straight season. He's not slowing down. 

"This is a core group of players that have been one of the most accomplished groups in the history of the game," Sullivan said. "The way I've watched them compete year in and year out gives me unwavering belief in them, just their drive and their will to win. They were a huge part of dragging us back into the fight."

The Penguins aren't ready for a rebuild just yet. The level they reached late in this season came too late, but it showed how this team is capable of playing. The result was a disappointing one. But especially with an influx young players in the fold, this season can be one to build on.

"I thought that the whole group showed a lot of character," said Crosby. "I think that every single guy stepped up and had a part in us still being in it. There's something to take from that."