Who: Vegas Golden Knights (28-17-14, 70 points, 1st place Pacific Division) @ Pittsburgh Penguins (30-15-13, 73 points, 2nd place Metropolitan Division)
When: 1:00 p.m. eastern
How to Watch: National game on TNT, streaming on HBO Max
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Pens’ Path Ahead: The march of the Penguins will be a staggering one, today’s game kicks off 17 games in the month of March. The Pens make a trip to Boston for a game Tuesday night, then return home for three games: Buffalo on Thursday then receive visits from Philadelphia and Boston next weekend. After that, a five-game road trip awaits.
Opponent Track: Vegas won their Olympic return game on Wednesday against Los Angeles. Today is the second game of a four-game eastern swing for them, having lost 3-2 in regulation to the Capitals on Friday on the first leg. Up next from them are stops in Buffalo on Tuesday and Detroit on Wednesday.
Season Series: Pittsburgh heads out to Vegas on the upcoming road trip on Thursday March 12th to complete the two-game season series between the cross-conference teams.
Hidden Stat: The Penguins (No. 3 power play, No. 2 penalty kill) and Vegas (No. 5 power play and No. 10 PK) are the only two teams in the NHL that currently have both of their special team units in the top-10 this season.
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Hidden Stat 2.0: These two teams are a combined 2-14 this season in shootouts, having the worst two shootout records in the league (1-8 for the Pens, 1-6 for Vegas). If this one goes the distance, who knows..
Getting to know the Golden Knights
Projected lines
FORWARDS
Ivan Barbashev – Jack Eichel – Mark Stone
Pavel Dorofeyev – Mitch Marner – Reilly Smith
Braeden Bowman – Tomas Hertl – Keegan Kolesar
Brandon Saad – Colton Sissons – Alexander Holtz
DEFENSEMEN
Jeremy Lauzon / Shea Theodore
Noah Hanifin / Rasmus Andersson
Brayden McNabb / Kaeden Korczak
Goalies: Adin Hill and Akira Schmidt
Potential scratches: Ben Hutton
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Injured Reserve: Carter Hart, Alex Pietrangelo, William Karlsson, Brett Howden
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Vegas has resorted to moving Marner into center in large part due to a mysterious injury around Karlsson. Karlsson has been out since November 8, with no real update on what is going on or whether or not he’ll be back any time soon, or even for the playoffs.
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You know it’s a Gen Z world with names like a Braeden and a Kaeden in the lineup. And an Adin plus another Brayden for good measure.
Season stats
via hockeydb
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Maybe it’s fitting Vegas has six or seven very shiny and great pieces to work with, then the bottom six or seven in their lineup are not that impressive. Lines up well with that town.
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Goal has been a problem, signing Carter Hart didn’t do much to change their fortunes and Hill’s stats have incrementally been falling away since posting an 11-4 record and .932 save percentage in the 2023 playoffs.
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There’s been a little bit of an adjustment factor for Andersson coming over in a major trade. One goal in 10 games for a blueliner might not standout, for him it does. Andersson has 10 goals and 30 points in 48 games with Calgary at the start of this season. He’s averaged double-digits the past three full seasons, scoring 31 total goals from 2022/23 – 2024/25. They’ll definitely be looking for him to kick in more as he gets acclimated.
Key to the game: What can the Pens offense do against an uneven opponent?
Vegas has had a great process to keep shots and chances down, yet they allow a lot of 5v5 goals against due to shoddy goaltending. In the last two games coming out of the break without Sidney Crosby, the Penguins have only scored one 5v5 goal rom a forward (Egor Chinakhov’s goal against New Jersey to go with 5v5 goals from Connor Clifton and Ryan Shea).
Thus, the script for this game is pretty clear: can the Pens dig deep and find some offense from the players up front? Some have been close; Anthony Mantha scored on the power play yesterday, Bryan Rust has been getting some looks, Ben Kindel, Evgeni Malkin and Tommy Novak each registered six shots on goal yesterday against the Rangers. They’re probably going to need names in that last sentence to punch through at even strength in a game like this.
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And now for the Pens
Projected lines
FORWARDS
Egor Chinakhov – Tommy Novak – Evgeni Malkin
Avery Hayes – Rickard Rakell – Bryan Rust
Anthony Mantha – Ben Kindel – Justin Brazeau
Connor Dewar – Blake Lizotte – Noel Acciari
DEFENSEMEN
Parker Wotherspoon / Erik Karlsson
Sam Girard / Kris Letang
Ryan Shea / Connor Clifton
Goalies: Arturs Silovs (Stuart Skinner played yesterday)
Potential Scratches: Kevin Hayes, Ryan Graves, Ilya Solovyov
IR: Sidney Crosby, Filip Hallander, Jack St. Ivany
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We’ll leave the lines as they have been, though Rakell at center might not be lasting much longer after losing all 10 of his faceoffs yesterday and the team chose to play Malkin and Kindel at center later on in the game yesterday between Rust/Rakell on the wings. If that full on change happens, the Pens might need a center and crack an opportunity for Kevin Hayes to play his first game since 2/5 and just his second since 1/12.
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Girard was dealing with a minor injury yesterday but able to play. With so many games coming up in the next few weeks that will be worth watching to see if that issue gets put behind him without issue.
