It’s the second-to-last game of the season for the Pittsburgh Penguins, fighting for their playoff lives in a chaotic Metropolitan Division. Their recent run has put them just one point back of the Capitals, Flyers, and Red Wings in the race for the second wildcard spot in the East, and they could even theoretically catch the Islanders for the third divisional seed.
All that is to say, this game matters enormously to the Penguins.
They’ve been plagued by bad shooting luck this year despite a very good offense, which has impacted their power play success rate in particular. Still, Sidney Crosby isn’t slowing down, with 90 points (41G/49A) on the season so far.
He’s been doing substantial work carrying the team, with defenders Erik Karlsson and Kris Letang coming in second and third in assists with 43 and 40, and Bryan Rust and Evgeni Malkin coming in second and third in goals with 28 and 26. Without Crosby and Rust (who missed 20 games earlier this season), the team has really struggled to generate offense, scoring or no.
The Penguins’ goaltending has been fine, behind an okay-ish defense, with Tristan Jarry and Alex Nedeljkovic sharing both the workload and the .903 sv%. The team has been solid on the penalty kill despite their power-play weaknesses.
The game airs at 6PM Central on Bally Sports South and 102.5 The Game. Nashville’s playoff seeding isn’t as much a concern for them as Pittsburgh’s is for it, but several players have individual milestones to aim for, as does the team itself, so it would be nice to see them score several tonight.
Statistics from naturalstattrick.com. Additional background from hockeyviz.com.