Gone are the days of a late-season meeting between the Rangers and Penguins being a playoff preview. While the Rangers sit atop the Metropolitan Division, the Penguins have waved the white flag on the 2023-24 campaign and are looking towards the offseason already even with a month’s worth of games still to be played.
Pittsburgh spent the majority of the season on the outside looking in of the Eastern Conference playoff picture, but were always in a position where one stretch of strong play would get them into the thick of things. That stretch never came prior to the trade deadline, and the team shipped away pending UFA Jake Guentzel, one of Sidney Crosby’s most common linemates, to the Carolina Hurricanes for a boatload of future assets.