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Sidney Crosby (87) of the Pittsburgh Penguins celebrates with goaltender Alex Nedeljkovic after an NHL hockey game against the Tampa Bay Lightning in Pittsburgh, Saturday, April 6, 2024. The Penguins won 5-4. (AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar)

PITTSBURGH (AP) — Sidney Crosby insists he's not a scoreboard watcher.

At least not publicly.

Maybe it's because the longtime Pittsburgh Penguins captain is too busy with his team to care about others. Or maybe it's because Crosby never had much reason to look during Pittsburgh's run to 16 straight playoff berths between 2007 and 2022.

Or maybe it's just because Crosby doesn't have to look at his phone to find out where the Penguins are. The proof can be found on the countless video boards that greet players throughout PPG Paints Arena.

“When I come to the rink, it’s skating everywhere.” Crosby said with a smile. “So it’s hard to miss it.”

The same goes for his team's sudden – and unexpected – push toward the end of the season.

Two weeks ago, the Penguins were nine points shy of the second wild card spot in the Eastern Conference. Fourteen days and 12 of a possible 14 points later, Pittsburgh will face Detroit on Thursday, tied with the Red Wings for ninth place in the East, just one point behind Washington with four games left.

Heady territory for a team that looked like it was going to get it together after the trade that sent Stanley Cup champion Jake Guentzel to Carolina. On the night the move was made, the Penguins were stunned as they were drilled 6-0 by Washington. The cloud remained.

“You acknowledge it and you try to suppress it, you try not to think about it, but it affects everyone.” said goalkeeper Alex Nedeljkovic.

Seven defeats followed in the next nine games. It wasn't until Guenztel returned in a Hurricanes uniform that the Penguins seemed to wake up. A 4-1 win over Carolina, in which Pittsburgh ran with a determination and discipline hard to match in the last five months, reminded the guys in the room that the Penguins can still compete with the league's best, if they didn't sulk or they made the kind of mistakes that led to multiple goals, a common theme in their first 70s games.

That confidence has risen in step with Nedeljkovic's rise. Nedeljkovic was signed in the offseason as a replacement for Tristan Jarry and has become an integral part of the team during the most important time of the season.

Not that he wants to talk about it. Nedeljkovic, who is 6-0-2 in his last eight appearances, shrugs when asked about his impact. Instead, he points to what is happening in front of him.

“We didn’t miss out on a lot of strange rushes” Nedeljkovic said. “We didn’t miss out on many first-class opportunities. We did a good job of keeping things out there, and when it mattered most, we really stepped up our game in the last five or six minutes of the game.”

That wasn't the case for most of the season. The Penguins have been tied in the third period 16 times this season. They won just nine of those games, missing the killer instinct that was their trademark between 2008 and 2017, when the franchise won three Stanley Cups and reached the Finals in another.

The reality is that this has been going on for some time. Pittsburgh hasn't won a playoff series since the second round in 2018. The Penguins missed the postseason for the first time in 17 years last spring and have spent most of this season looking like the NHL's oldest team that they are.

Changes were made. More will likely be added over the summer. But Crosby and his longtime teammates Evgeni Malkin, Kris Letang and Bryan Rust rail against the dying of the light.

Mike Sullivan, the NHL's second-longest-serving head coach, cited the type of hockey his team is currently playing “inspiring.”

“I always use that phrase when the five guys on the ice have the same heartbeat.” Sullivan said. “I think that’s what it looks like for me right now.”

And that's why penguins have a pulse. One that is accelerating as the regular season enters its final days.

Pittsburgh is the only one of the four teams that enters Thursday's game within two points of the wild-card spot with a winning record in its last 10 games. The Capitals and Red Wings are treading water. Philadelphia is in free fall.

Only the Penguins, whose core knows a thing or two about winning in the spring, are playing as if they want to make it to the postseason. However, they are also aware of how volatile their opportunities are. At this point it's a game-by-game suggestion. It has been a while. Your scope is almost non-existent.

Nearly. On the other hand, it is better to have little margin for error than to have no margin at all. Considering where they were two weeks ago, they'll get there.

“In the last two to three weeks we have been in the middle of it all.” said Crosby, who scored 40 goals in his 19th season and was voted the NHL's most versatile player by his peers on Wednesday. “I think it brought out the best in us. We play good hockey. I think we believe in our game and we have to continue to do the same.”