suggesting for not weeks really months that the team was going to be better than almost everybody thought

been suggesting for the past few days that this is kind of cool this is is fun. I don't have to take it super seriously,

but maybe somewhat seriously. Today I'm going to try to back that up with some data. Good morning

to you. Good Thursday morning. I'm Dan Kovachvich of D.K. Pittsburgh Sports. This is Daily Shot of Penguins coming to you from St. Paul, Minnesota. It shows up on your figurative doorstep right and early every weekday. If you're into football and or baseball, I also offer daily shots of Steelers and Pirates that I hope you'll check out. Penguins versus Wild tonight here.

That's an 808 p.m. Eastern Time faceoff at the newly renamed Grand Casino Arena.

It's the same thing.

It's the same place, Excel Energy Center.

And it presents these penguins with a chance to do something that's maybe just another

little brick in the wall, right?

Hear this out, it's pretty cool.

Our staff at D.K. Pittsburgh Sports, notably Eric Bowser, crunch some numbers at my request

from afar, and they're pretty good.

In this decade, that means

2020 onward. So for the NHL's purpose, is 2021 onward because, you know, COVID-N-that.

29 teams started out 7-2-2 or better, and 27 of those 29 teams ended up making the Stanley Cup playoffs.

The only exceptions were the 2021 Flyers and then the Rangers from this past season.

That means they made it at a 93.1% rate.

That's a really high rate. All right. So if the Penguins beat the Wild here tonight,

and Minnesota is off to a somewhat sleepy 3-5 and 3-3 start already, they've gotten some grizzly

goaltending as well. They also have some things that are going good for them.

But anyway, if the Penguins win this game and they go to 8-2-2, the teams that would go

8-2 and 2 or better, if that was their start, 33 out of 34 made it to the playoffs.

...