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New York Times
16-03-2025
- Sport
- New York Times
Penguins — out of nowhere — have won four straight games: Yohe's 10 observations
PITTSBURGH — It was noted historian Biff Tannen who famously uttered in Back to the Future II, 'There's something very familiar about all this.' Look no further than one year ago. The Penguins were left for dead last season only to stage a dramatic, late-season surge that nearly led them to a remarkable playoff berth. Making the playoffs this season would be even more remarkable, unprecedented and downright miraculous. And yet, the standings are what they are. After the Penguins walloped the Devils, 7-3 on Saturday at PPG Paints Arena, they found themselves four points out of the final Eastern Conference playoff spot. Advertisement By the end of the evening, they'll be six points out because of the reality that Columbus and the New York Rangers — both of whom entered Saturday tied for the final playoff spot — played in Columbus on Saturday night, meaning one will earn two points. And, yes, the entire East has games in hand on the Penguins. Nonetheless, the Penguins are indeed mathematically alive and they've won four straight games against high caliber competition. 'Anything can happen,' Mike Sullivan said. It almost did last season. The Penguins, in a similar situation, were 1o points out of a playoff spot last season and left for dead with only 13 games remaining. They then went on a 7-0-3 run that nearly propelled them to a playoff spot. Their run started on a March, Sunday afternoon when they earned a point against the Avalanche in Denver. This run started on a Sunday afternoon on the road against a playoff team in Minnesota. A victory against the Wild on Sunday was followed by wins against Vegas, St. Louis and the Devils. Three of those teams are firmly locked into playoff spots and the Blues are in contention. So, the Penguins haven't exactly been having their way with the bottom feeders of the NHL. And yet, they've won four in a row, behind jarringly impressive goaltending from Tristan Jarry, whose performance has been so bad this season that he's twice been exiled to the American Hockey League. He's been superb in his latest recall. So, too, has the Penguins' offensive output. They racked up seven goals against the Devils and their depth was on display as Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin recorded only one point each. Of course, the Penguins' star power has been on display during this sudden run. Crosby has seven points in the past four games. 'It's nice coming to work every day when we're executing like this,' Kris Letang said. Advertisement The Penguins, realistically, can probably only lose a couple of games for the remainder of the season to have a realistic chance of actually qualifying for the postseason. They have 13 games remaining and there is precious little evidence that they're capable of such a run. Then again, there wasn't much evidence that they were capable of winning four games against high caliber competition. Up next for the Penguins, who have outscored their opponents 18-9 on their four-game winning streak, is a home game on Tuesday against the Islanders. • It feels silly writing about this, because I don't think anyone reading this really thinks the Penguins have a chance of making the playoffs, but the standings are what they are. More than anything, I think this is an indictment of just how bad the Eastern Conference is once you remove the Florida teams, Maple Leafs and Capitals. I can't ignore how similar this feels to what we witnessed last spring. The Penguins are suddenly scoring goals in bunches, getting contributions from young, newly acquired defensemen, and receiving good goaltending for the first time all season. Sounds kind of like last season, does it not? The parallels are there in a big way. • The Penguins are probably hurting their draft position right now. There's no other way to put it. They appeared on track for a top-five pick and, while that remains entirely possible, it becomes less likely every time the Penguins win a game. Blame Kyle Dubas for this if you want. I suppose he didn't have to recall Jarry, knowing full well that Joel Blomqvist was in over his head at the NHL level. And I suppose he could have traded Rickard Rakell, which would have badly wounded the current team. But don't blame Sullivan or the players. They're paid to coach, and paid to win hockey games. You can't tell a team or a coach to tank. It doesn't work that way and, frankly, I find it pretty admirable that this team is playing as hard as it is. Advertisement • Jarry is becoming some kind of a story. Is all of this fools' gold? Maybe. Does he deserve credit for how he's overcome the adversity to suddenly look like a good NHL goalie? Absolutely. Jarry wasn't quite as dominant against the Devils as he was in his previous three outings, but he was still plenty good. I'm struck by how calm he looks in net, how easy he's making it look. He's not doing too much, and not overplaying the puck. He almost looks to be in some kind of a zen mindset. Would I trust Jarry moving forward, no matter how he performs down the stretch this season? Nah, probably not. Sorry, but a lot of damage has been done and I don't think the Penguins can or will trust him with the organization's fortunes moving forward. But I mean that as no disrespect. This is a great story and he's playing wonderful hockey at the moment. Full credit to him. If it compels a general manager around the league to take a shot at him this summer, even better. • This marks the 12th time in Crosby's career in which he's accounted for at least 50 assists. That number would be even higher if not for concussions and NHL work stoppages. The dynamic duo is at it again! 👏 — Pittsburgh Penguins (@penguins) March 15, 2025 He now has 73 points on the season. He missed two games in February, which means the magic number for Crosby is 80. Should he reach 80 points, he will have broken free of a tie with Wayne Gretzky, giving him 20 straight seasons of averaging a point per game or better. Crosby needs seven points in his past 13 games to break the mark. It's hard not to like his chances. • Crosby and Evgeni Malkin are both playing at a very high level. Malkin did take two awful penalties in this game, but still, his skating since the 4 Nations Face-Off has been noticeably better. Advertisement While Crosby only had one point in this game, he was buzzing all night. They're almost 40 and know they probably won't see the postseason this spring, but there has been no slowing down for either future Hall of Famer. • Connor Dewar scored two goals and has three in his past two games. What a nice first impression. DEWEY 👏 — Pittsburgh Penguins (@penguins) March 15, 2025 He didn't record a goal all season with Toronto before being traded to the Penguins. He did, however, score 10 goals in 57 games the season before in Minnesota. Maybe this is merely a lucky hot streak. It's too early to say. But sometimes bottom-six players simply find a comfort level in certain systems. The Penguins are hoping that will be the case. He's done a very nice job so far. • Speaking of new guys, how about Conor Timmins? He scored a goal on Thursday in his third game with the Penguins. Against the Devils, he recorded two assists and was a plus-4. What I notice, more than anything, when watching him play is his poise. It's awfully early in his time with the Penguins, of course, but this has been a fairly solid NHL player in the past. He's only 26 and there's room for improvement. This isn't necessarily a player with a high ceiling, but could he be a good third-pairing option moving forward for the Penguins? I think so. • Erik Karlsson and Letang were both really good on Saturday. I've liked both of their games lately, for the most part. Karlsson scored his 10th goal of the season. EK65 WITH A 🚀 — Pittsburgh Penguins (@penguins) March 15, 2025 Repeat after me, class: The Penguins go as those two guys go. It's never changed. • The Devils will make the playoffs but they won't be around for long without Jack Hughes. • There were 3,000 empty seats, something you never see during the annual St. Patrick's Day weekend home game. This is a reflection on the season the Penguins have had and ticket prices. But I have to say, the fans who are showing up at games during the past few weeks have been fantastic. The real hockey fans are in the building right now, and the atmosphere has been outstanding.
The Independent
20-02-2025
- The Independent
Why you should visit this German city packed with Cold War curiosities and oddball festivals
In Chemnitz, you need to squint to find conventional beauty. Ambling toward my hotel on a frigid January night, I turn right at Brückenstraße and pass a strange sight that also happens to be the city's most well-known attraction - a gigantic 40-tonne bust of Karl Marx's head. His furrowed brow is arresting, while behind is an enormous stone frieze pronouncing 'Workers of the world, Unite!' in several languages. At the top of the street, my hulking 26-floor hotel – absurdly large for a city of under 300,000 people – looms ominously in the dark and resembles Biff Tannen's dystopian hotel-casino from Back to the Future Part II (but without the kitschy neon). Unconventional? Yes. But this curious city in Saxony – the 2025 European Capital of Culture, shared with the border-straddling Nova Gorica in Slovenia – is well aware of its unorthodox charm. 'An Eastern European city in a Western European country' is how it's frequently described to me. And with 223 projects and over 1000 events in the books for this year, there's plenty to look forward to. The third-largest city in Saxony behind Dresden and Leipzig and a busy industrial hub during the 19th and early 20th century, Chemnitz's smoking chimneys were flanked to the south by the Ore Mountains – one of the world's oldest mining regions. Invariably, it became one of Germany 's wealthiest cities. All of that changed, however, at the tail end of the Second World War, when Allied bombs rained down on the city, destroying 80 per cent of the city centre (the same percentage as the infamous firebombing of nearby Dresden). Seven years later in 1952, the East German government (GDR) decided to change Chemnitz 's name to Karl-Marx-Stadt (Karl-Marx-City), despite Marx himself having never stepped foot in the city. Two decades after that – in a show of thunderous Cold War hubris – the quixotic government decided what the locals needed was a colossal stone head of the Das Kapital author. Following the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 and German reunification, 76 per cent of the city's inhabitants voted to revert to the old name of Chemnitz. In 2025, the city is an intriguing hodgepodge of architectural styles, from the blocky and functional Eastern Modernism ('Ostmoderne') so favoured by the GDR's socialist urban planning model, to the ornate and ostentatious Art Nouveau townhouses lining the well-heeled Kaßberg neighbourhood that somehow evaded the Allies' bombs. 'It is a very interesting style of architecture here,' says Lydia Tannenhauer-Schnabl, consultant in the Chemnitz Department of Urban Development. 'We don't have a beautiful old town, the only really old building left is the red tower, which is part of the old Medieval city wall. The rest of the infrastructure and architecture is fractured. Some people say it's ugly, others just say it's Chemnitz's style.' I rather like how the city's Cold War relics have become oddball attractions, and one of the most prominent is the 300m-high power plant chimney known locally as the Lulatsch, meaning 'beanpole'. Completed in 1984, it was given colourful rings of paint by French artist Daniel Buren (and might well be the world's tallest work of art). Speaking of art, there are several superb museums in Chemnitz, with the handsome Museum Gunzenhauser housing over 380 works by German New Objectivity artist Otto Dix and the restored Art Nouveau Villa Esche – once briefly a Stasi base – acting as an elaborate homage to the Belgian artist and architect Henry Van de Velde. More wide-ranging is the Purple Path, an art and sculpture trail that links all 38 municipalities in the Chemnitz region (yes, it's not just the city that gets a bite of the Capital of Culture apple). A cursory glance at Chemnitz's 2025 cultural calendar reveals a playful side, too, with some bizarre festivals lined up for the summer. Hutfestival in late May sees locals donning all manner of peculiar hats; Slackfest in August is a showcase for slackliners (similar to tightrope walking); and Chemnitz's fifth Steampunk Festival brings a dose of retrofuturism to the city in June. On this lively January weekend, I'm invited to the opening celebrations inside the sublime Opera House where various dignitaries speak in platitudes and pristine theatrical performances draw much applause. 'For a long time Chemnitz was a city in the shadows,' says Mayor Sven Schulze. 'A city with open wounds that people consciously ignored. But it is also a city of reinvention. Allow yourself to be surprised by our creativity.' On a bone-chilling evening outside, the Karl Marx monument is engulfed by a brightly-lit stage as various German music acts perform to 80,000 people with that mesmerising stone face providing a ghostly backdrop. I hop from one foot to another in a futile effort to stay warm, while lasers crisscross and the crowd basks in an unlikely spotlight. The soothing embrace of a local Saxon pilsner doesn't help stave off the chill but the evening is a success. Things warm up at the labyrinth-like Weltecho, an ornate club, cinema and courtyard on the fringes of the city centre. A jazz band's groove gets a crowd dancing downstairs while upstairs a permed MC bounces around onstage with his curls popping out beneath a blue baseball cap. This is much more my scene. And such is the male Gen Z penchant in 2025 for moustaches, mullets and loose-fitting clothes, that it feels as if I've had a window into the old GDR days of the 1980s here without ever having to enter a museum. It's a rousing night. As Chemnitz thaws, expect things to become even livelier.
