Penguins Should Beware of Eastern Conference Snakes

By GTOG Staff

We focused this week almost exclusively on Thursday's showdown in Madison Square, and after clearing that hurdle, Penguin fans are feeling pretty good about ourselves, aren't we?

Huge fan.

Of course we are. With a healthy lineup, the Penguins look capable of tearing through the Eastern Conference this spring.  And they might.  But let's take a breath and look at the reality of the situation, after the jump...

The Penguins have back-to-back road games this weekend against the New Jersey Devils and Philadelphia Flyers.  These are the snakes in the grass just lying in wait as we skip along through our little 10 game winning streak.  If you've been solely preoccupied with how many points separate the Pens and the Rangers, maybe you need to step back and look at the larger playoff picture.

The Flyers and Devils are winning, too. Let us break this down for you. If the Penguins don't keep getting two points virtually every time out, they could be looking up at Rangers, Flyers, AND Devils by this time next week.  Now, you might counter, it wouldn't be so bad to draw a #6 seed if it means playing Florida in the first round, and you know what, you'd be right.  However, think about the legitimate possibility of going to Philly or New Jersey for Game 1 in the first round. Those are two strong teams, with legitimate scorers and two goalies capable of big things.  Forget his history against the Pens for a moment -  Ilya Bryzgalov has 3 shutouts in his last 4 games.  Even historically good teams are vulnerable against a hot goalie, and Bryz is entirely capable of going all Glenn Healy in 1993 on our ass.  All that being said, maybe we don't need to worry so much about the hot goalie.  Maybe we have the hot goalie.

"I do not fine dis, how you say, difficult."

 You know what they say about snakes. They're way more afraid of us than we are of them.