It wasn’t long ago that the Penguins had hardly a shred of home-ice advantage.
Not anymore.
Now the Penguins are clobbering teams at PPG Paints Arena. It has become a difficult place to play for opposing teams.
The Penguins have the best home record in the NHL, and their 18 wins are three more than anyone else.
Their 6-2 win Sunday against the Tampa Bay Lightning stretched their point streak at home to 12 games, in which they’re 11-0-1. Including playoffs, the Penguins are 45-10-4 in their past 59 home games and have won five in a row at PPG Paints Arena.
That’s crazy. It’s also a .793 points percentage. Not only that, the Penguins this season have an 89-23 goal differential at home in 22 games (18-2-2). They’ve scored six or more goals six times in 2016-17, five of them coming at home.
“You want to be good at home, obviously,” Sidney Crosby said. “You have your crowd. You feed off of that. It’s important that you establish that. When we’re here, we try to use that advantage as best we can. We’ve played really good hockey here. I think it has to do with the energy we get from the crowd but having that mentality, too, that when we’re at home, we’re tough to beat.”
It’s fairly intuitive that the Penguins want to be tough at home. But why exactly the Penguins are so dominant remains a bit of a mystery.
As coach Mike Sullivan explained, it’s not like — outside of having the last change — they’re doing anything drastically different.
“I think our team enjoys playing in front of our fans,” Sullivan said. “We have a terrific fan base here that is so supportive of our team. I know our guys are appreciative of them, as is our coaching staff. I know they give us a boost.
“But it’s not like we draw up a game plan for home, a game plan for away. We’re trying to play the same game. But certainly we’ve been able to string some wins here together at home, and I think that’s important for us moving forward, when the stakes start to get high here, down the stretch.”
The Penguins last regulation home loss was Nov. 21, 5-2 to the Rangers.
If you’re dead set on finding a reason for the success at home — again, it’s not like the Penguins aren’t playing really well away from PPG Paints Arena, too — you can point to the power play, which scored against the Lightning.
The Penguins are 22 for 80 on home ice for a 27.5 percent success rate compared to nine for 57 (15.8 percent) on the road.
“I think we’re just coming out every night and playing hard,” Conor Sheary said. “When you’re comfortable in your own rink, your own fans are behind you, I think it’s fun to play that way.”
Lineup notes
Matt Murray has been skating on his own and has been around the team, walking with no noticeable limp. Murray, who had a lower-body injury Dec. 28, is likely to return to practice this week. It stands to reason then, and based on how far along Murray is, that he could accompany the team on its upcoming Washington-Ottawa-Detroit road trip.
Chad Ruhwedel was a healthy scratch Sunday, and Steve Oleksy skated on a third defense pair with Olli Maatta.
Power-play rotation?
Sullivan talked pregame about potentially using a two-quarterback system on his power play with Kris Letang and Justin Schultz.
While Letang got the majority of top-unit time, the two were on the ice together when Letang scored a garbage time goal Sunday. Schultz even picked up the assist to stretch his point streak to a career-high five games.
“I think these guys are both very capable guys,” Sullivan said. “We might use both of them on the unit. ‘Tanger’ is obviously an elite defenseman and has been such a big part of this team in every aspect, the power play being one of them. Justin, in ‘Tanger’s’ absence, has done a really good job and helped the power play continue to grow and get better. We feel as though we can keep both of those guys in the mix. It might give us an opportunity to manage minutes better and to make sure that we allow the recovery time for those guys so that they can be at their best. I think it gives us more versatility and more options, depending on the struggles or challenges that we face.”
Jason Mackey: jmackey@post-gazette.com and Twitter @JMackeyPG.
First Published: January 9, 2017, 5:00 a.m.
