The Penguins will host the Tampa Bay Lightning this Saturday for a noon Game 5 in which they will try and seal this series up. Whilst at work today, with many customers coming in and talking about last night's game, I heard a common theme: that the Pens are not a good team during these afternoon games, a statement I've seen declared on Pensburgh a few times as well.
With that said, I started looking into the Pens games played at 5 pm or before, because I think anything earlier than five is ungodly. You might be surprised with what is shown.
Keep in mind, I went back only to the 2007-08 regular season, playoffs included, because I thought that was the best place to start with this, I don't want to call it a dynasty, but a dynasty in the making, which is what we have with this Pens team.
Contrary to what many may think, in that time frame stretching back to the 2007-08 season, 63 games have been played before 5 pm, 35 of which were for victories, 28 for losses, which also includes shootout losses, of course. That is 56% of the time they won, 44% of the time they lost. Those are more surprising numbers than I thought they would be, as I'm sure we all may feel that, panic enveloping us, we lose a lot more often than we win these games.
So fear not, Pens fans- there is more hope than we thought that we can win this game this Saturday! Unless you want to look at it a little more logically, that there is a 50% chance we can win, 50% chance we can lose.