Oh no, not the Oilers
Who: Edmonton Oilers (38-21-3, 79 points, 2nd place Pacific Division) @ Pittsburgh Penguins (28-26-8, 64 points, 7th place Metropolitan Division)
When: 1 p.m. ET
How to Watch: Broadcast nationally on TNT, streaming on Max
Pens’ Path Ahead: The Pens stay in the heavy scheduling for still over a week. They’re up in Ottawa on Tuesday, followed by coming home to see San Jose on Thursday. Next weekend is a Saturday-Sunday set of home games against the NY Rangers and Detroit.
Opponent Track: Today wraps up a four game road trip for Edmonton where they’re 1-1-1, but didn’t like their game in against Columbus on Thursday in a 4-2 loss and won’t be happy after again scoring only two goals yesterday in what ended up being a 3-2 shootout loss to Buffalo.
Season Series: It’s been really ugly for the Pens in this matchup lately. They took it on the chin in a 6-1 loss to Edmonton a week ago, and haven’t done well in several years against the Oilers. Luckily for Pittsburgh these teams only play twice a year.
Projected lines
FORWARDS
Ryan Nugent-Hopkins -Connor McDavid - Zach Hyman
Ryan McLeod - Leon Draisaitl - Warren Foegele
Evander Kane - Adam Henrique - Corey Perry
Mattias Janmark - Sam Carrick - Connor Brown
DEFENSEMEN
Mattias Ekholm / Evan Bouchard
Darnell Nurse / Vincent Desharnais
Brett Kulak / Cody Ceci
Goalies: Calvin Pickard (Stuart Skinner player yesterday)
Possible scratches: Derek Ryan, Troy Stetcher
IR: none
—The Pens saw Pickard last week, he didn’t have to do a ton on 23 shots but looked in control on the few opportunities they generated en route to only allowing one goal. Now they’ll see him again today.
—Last week McDavid and Draisaitl were on the same line, they were split yesterday in Buffalo but it didn’t go that well for Edmonton. Don’t be surprised to see the Oil’s top two options linked up at least at times for today.
—Edmonton added Adam Henrique at the deadline. Will it be enough? Can the lower two lines and lower two pairs be good enough to win multiple playoff rounds? We’ll soon find out but this still doesn’t look like a championship-caliber team so much as it is a few absolutely amazing players out there with a bunch of random pieces.
(via hockeydb)
—McDavid hit 100 points for the seventh time in his career. Only times he hasn’t were his rookie season (missed half of it with injury) and when the pandemic stopped the season when he had 97 points...He just had a 13-game assist streak broken yesterday against Buffalo as he looks to become the first player since Wayne Gretzky in 1990-91 to record 100 assists in a season.
In lopsided matchups, Penguins/Oilers over the last five games is right up there with nail/hammer, windshield/bug and Flyers/winning a Stanley Cup in 50 years.
That’s a 5-0 record for Edmonton while averaging 5.8 goals and 38 shots/game. Averaging! They probably could have done even more if not for letting up in several of those blowouts.
Projected lines
FORWARDS
Michael Bunting - Sidney Crosby - Rickard Rakell
Reilly Smith - Evgeni Malkin - Valtteri Puustinen
Emil Bemstrom - Lars Eller - Jesse Puljujarvi
Jonathan Gruden - Noel Acciari - Jeff Carter
DEFENSEMEN
P.O. Joseph / Kris Letang
Marcus Pettersson / Erik Karlsson
Ryan Graves / John Ludvig
Goalies: Tristan Jarry (Alex Nedeljkovic played yesterday)
Potential Scratches: Drew O’Connor (concussion)
IR: Matt Nieto (knee surgery), Bryan Rust (upper-body injury), Jansen Harkins (hand injury)
—Just thinking out-loud about this roster, 11 out of the 18 skaters in the lineup didn’t play for Pittsburgh last season at all (counting Puustinen, who was in the minors all year). That’s a lot of turnover already in the Dubas era. That number will come down a little when Rust and O’Connor are back, but it may go a unrecognized just how different this team has become already. And surely will endure in the future.
