When Does Reality Hit?
And How Hard?

So I haven’t blogged in months, and the title of my first post (in a long time) hints that this wonderful unbeaten streak is soon going to come to an end, or at least—at some point—will end.

But first things first. As much as any other fan, I have thoroughly enjoyed this unbeaten streak. I have been excited to see the Penguins catapult from just outside the playoff picture to being ensconced (if only for today) into a share of fourth place in the Eastern Conference playoff race. And in the midst of this unbeaten streak, my mind has wandered to places I never thought it would even dare to daydream of this season.

A sampling:

∑ If any team has to break the 1992-93 Pittsburgh Penguins record 17-game winning streak, I want that team to be another Pittsburgh Penguins team. And while a shootout or overtime loss quickly brought me back to earth on the day I was envisioning these Penguins running off 17 straight victories, I couldn’t help thinking, seriously, that the 2006-07 Penguins are not very far away from being able to put together a near-record winning streak.

∑ That’s the other thing. In the midst of this wonderful, wonderful streak of earning at least a point in every game, I am beginning to dream of the team not merely making the playoffs, but making noise in the playoffs. When the Penguins have been "on," they have beaten some of the best teams in the league (Nashville and Buffalo come to mind), and they have "beaten down" (Toronto defenseman McCabe’s words, not mine) those opponents who have fewer points than do they. I’m not yet at the point where Kevin Stevens was back in the early nineties, when he stated that he couldn’t believe there were any teams that could beat his Penguins in a seven game series. There are still too many variables on this Penguins team for me to make a statement similar to that of Stevens, and yet, well, sometimes, in my brain or my heart or somewhere, I’m wondering. If the team plays as it recently has, really—in a seven game series, which teams are best equipped to beat the Penguins? How many of those teams exist? In any case, the point is, I have begun to dream of Cinderella runs to the Stanley Cup finals, or something thereof—and really, at the start of the season, I never expected such daydreams to be even remotely realistic.

All right, just so you know, I have daydreamed—and I considered these to be daydreams to be at least somewhat rooted in the reality that comes when a team reels off a double-digit unbeaten streak—of breaking the NHL record for consecutive wins in a season and of winning the Stanley Cup not in future seasons but this season. As much as any other fan, I’m what I term "high on hope," intoxicated by the potential and possibility these Penguins have shown in this unbeaten streak.

And yet, still I wonder. The race for the Eastern Conference playoffs is tight. And for as much as the Penguins have grown to have longer winning streaks, the team has been streaky all season in terms of wins and losses. A few losses in a row, at an inconvenient time, and suddenly you’re no longer the NHL’s hottest team and no longer assumed to have a playoff berth.

That’s the thing. Reality will hit. Even the Penguins, who believe they can win every game, know that they will probably not win every game for the rest of the way. I read that Ryan Whitney viewing 18-10 as, perhaps, a decent goal for the remaining 28 games of the season.
How the Penguins lose—and believe me, as much as anyone else, I really don’t want them to lose—and how they respond to that loss will determine what becomes of the remainder of their season—regular season, and hopefully, the playoffs and even more hopefully, more than just a handful and "taste" of playoff games.