Evgeni Malkin's lurching command of English pretty much requires him to be concise. So the NHL's leading scorer cut right to the point when addressing the approach the Penguins must take as they embark on the second half of the season.
After a drought-busting, 3-1 win Tuesday against Atlanta, he pointed to a dry-erase board in the team's Mellon Arena locker room where the league standings are displayed. The Penguins sit in ninth place in the Eastern Conference, one below the playoff cutoff, and are just three games over .500 at 20-17-4.
"We need everybody to score," the Russian-born Malkin said. "We need wins. We need to win every game. Now it's ninth place. We need to play hard and win every game and go up [in the standings]."
Heading into their game tonight at Nashville, the Penguins are coming off a first half of 2008-09 that had its high points, including a six-game winning streak the first half of November, and its low points, including five-game overall and home losing streaks they snapped against the Thrashers.
"I thought the whole month of November we played pretty solid hockey, probably all the way through until about mid-December, and then we obviously struggled," defenseman Rob Scuderi said. "If we can get back to playing solid hockey night in, night out, I like our chances of winning every night."
First on the agenda is to make the win Tuesday something other than one bright spot in a dreary stretch.
"This is just one game that we won," said winger Petr Sykora, who had two goals. "We're going through this [down] streak right now. It's not over. We have to build on the win. We have to get another win in Nashville.
"We have to continue winning just to make the playoffs. We can't just be OK. We can't just say, 'OK, we got a win,' and go to Nashville and play the same way. No, we have to build on this."
The Penguins had 49 points through the first half of last season, then brought it home with 53 points to win the Atlantic Division with a total of 102 and grab the No. 2 seed in the East. Once top-seeded Montreal got knocked out by Philadelphia, the Penguins rode home-advantage ice through the Eastern Conference rounds before losing to Detroit in the Stanley Cup final.
Bottom line for this season, they almost assuredly have to be better in the second half if they expect to return to the postseason.
Equaling the 44 points they earned in their first 41 games would put them at 88 points. No team in the East since the lockout of 2004-05 and the introduction of the shootout has qualified for the playoffs with fewer than 92.
The Penguins could start with scoring more and giving up fewer goals. They have given up one more goal, 125, than they have scored, 124, and have scored just 11 -- two on the power play -- in their past eight games. Their team goals-against average of 2.98 ranked 25th as of yesterday.
Malkin, with 63 points, is on pace for a career-best 126 points, but his 15 goals do not have him on track for a career high.
Center Sidney Crosby, who has 16 goals and is third in the NHL with 51 points, is not on pace to set career highs in goals or points. Second-year winger Tyler Kennedy, who has six goals in 27 games, is the only Penguins forward on pace to set a career high in goals.
The team's defensemen, led by rookie Alex Goligoski's six goals, have scored 13, less than half the 35 they produced last season. They surely miss production from Ryan Whitney, who has played in eight games after foot surgery and hasn't scored, and Sergei Gonchar, who is weeks from making his season debut after shoulder surgery. Each had 12 goals last season.
In addition to Whitney and Gonchar, Fleury, defenseman Hal Gill and forwards Mike Zigomanis and Kennedy have missed at least 10 games.
All but Gonchar and Zigomanis are back, although wingers Ruslan Fedotenko and Pascal Dupuis left the game Tuesday with Fedotenko looking like perhaps the more serious with an apparent hand injury from a fight with former Penguins winger Colby Armstrong. Dupuis' injury is undisclosed.
"We have to just stop the bleeding, win a couple games, get on a little winning streak, get that feeling of confidence back," Sykora said.
"When you slowly get those guys back, like [Sergei Gonchar], that's when we've got to go for that push and get on the big winning streak."
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NOTES -- The Penguins' home game Jan. 18 against the New York Rangers has been picked up as a national NBC game. It will start at 12:30 p.m. ... The Penguins canceled practice yesterday. ... Nashville defenseman Shea Weber was added to the Western Conference roster for the All-Star Game.
Matchup: Penguins at Nashville Predators, 8:08 p.m., Sommet Center, Nashville, Tenn.
Online: Live blog of the game at Empty Netters
TV, radio: FSN Pittsburgh, WXDX-FM (105.9).
Probable goaltenders: Marc-Andre Fleury for Penguins. Dan Ellis for Predators.
Penguins: Playing first of three in a row on road, where they are 11-8-2. ... Are 0-5 in Nashville dating to 1999. ... F Max Talbot has no goals, 1 assist in past 24 games.
Predators: Have lost five in a row, the past three by one goal each. ... Are last in Western Conference with 94 goals. ... Among worst power plays in NHL, 12.8 percent.
Hidden stat: Through yesterday, Predators had second-best faceoff percent (53.7) in NHL.
First Published: January 8, 2009, 10:00 a.m.
