There were times when the Penguins didn't win 13 home games in a season, much less in a compressed time frame. The woeful 1983-84 team, which was bad enough to secure Mario Lemieux as the No. 1 draft pick, only won 16 all season, home and road.
The Penguins are currently 34-12-2, their 70 points best in the Eastern Conference and third overall in the NHL. It's been a successful season so far by any measure, even more impressive given the number of important players who have missed games with injuries.
It's been nothing but good, yet there's a "yes, but..." sense of waiting for the other skate to drop.
After what happened last season, there's a heightened awareness that all of this can become insignificant quickly if it isn't followed by playoff success.
The Penguins aren't built to make the playoffs, they're constructed to make a serious run at the Stanley Cup. They did that last year, getting to the final four.
Yet it felt like failure when they wilted in the conference final against Boston.
Maybe that's why crowds seem reserved at the Consol Energy Center, and why people tend to leave early. Not many people match the manic enthusiasm Mike Emrick has on his NBC game calls. What's happening now is nice, but none of it really matters until the spring.
You could hibernate and not miss much, provided you set the alarm for mid-April.
That seems an odd approach considering the prices of tickets in the regular season, but the playoffs now define success for the Penguins.
The regular season is a six-month play-in to get to the tournament.
There's an occasional game that sparks emotion, but most of them are pretty perfunctory. That's what happens when a team is too good for its own good.
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BUS DETOURED
There's a theory making the rounds that Jerome Bettis is not worthy of the Hall of Fame because he only averaged 3.9 per rushing attempt.
This is a case of looking so intently through the microscope that a bigger, more obvious point is missed.
Bettis ran for 13,662 yards in his career, most of it with the Steelers. His yardage total is sixth in NFL history.
Except for No. 5 LaDanian Tomlinson (13,684 yards and not yet Hall eligible), Bettis is the only back in the top 10 who is not in the Hall of Fame.
It is worth noting that of Bettis' 91 rushing touchdowns, 56 were runs of three yards or less. That includes 43 one-yard runs, where it would have been impossible for him to gain more than one yard on the attempt.
If you amass 13,662 yards, it shouldn't matter if they came on 13,662 attempts. It's an impressive number.
Bettis probably won't get in this year, but he should get elected eventually. He deserves to be there.
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MAD MONEY
Most households could live comfortably on just 10 percent of the money Alex Rodriguez is spending on lawyers.
But don't you love commissioner Bud Selig getting self-righteous about cheating when his industry profited handsomely from the pharmaceutical-aided home run chase of 1998?
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