• Who: Penguins (14-7-7) vs. Canadiens (15-11-3)
• What: NHL regular season, Game 29
• When: 7:38 p.m.
• Where: PPG Paints Arena
• Goaltenders: Tristan Jarry (9-2-1, .913 SV%) vs. Jacob Fowler (NHL debut)
• TV: SportsNet Pittsburgh
• Stream: SNP360 (local), ESPN+ (out-of-market)
• Radio: Penguins Radio Network
• Boxscore: NHL.com
• Media notes: Penguins | Canadiens

► FOLLOW ALONG

• Final. Canadiens 4, Penguins 2. Goals from Bryan Rust and Erik Karlsson. Next up: Alex Nedeljkovic‘s homecoming on Saturday.

• Kris Letang takes a penalty with 18.6 left, a hook. There goes any push. Fitting way to end.

• Kris Letang and Erik Karlsson are out there together.

• Tristan Jarry to the bench with about 3:45 to go, down two goals.

• GOAL: Erik Karlsson capitalizes on the 6-on-4 from the blue line. Canadiens 4, Penguins 2

• Penguins get a power play with 5:10 left and pull the goaltender for a 6-on-4 power play, down three goals. Bold.

• Sidney Crosby is 20-4 in faceoffs.

• Penguins are being outshot 8-1 with the Ryan Shea-Kris Letang pair on the ice.

• Back to full strength. 

• Uh. Alexandre Carrier just decked Ben Kindel in the face in a scrum. Like a full-on punch. He’ll get a roughing call. It’ll be five-on-three for 25 seconds. Crowd is as fired up as it’s been all night,

• Ivan Demidov takes a hooking penalty with four seconds left in the Danton Heinen minor. So it’ll eventually be a Penguins power play.

• Now Danton Heinen takes a slashing penalty with 17:45 left.

• By the way: Sidney Crosby now only five points from surpassing Mario Lemieux.

• GOAL: Canadiens respond 15 seconds later off a 2-on-1 with Kris Letang as the only man back. Oliver Kapanen with the goal. Canadiens 4, Penguins 1

• GOAL: Bryan Rust, 44 seconds into the third. He goes to the net and bats in a feed from Sidney Crosby. Canadiens 3, Penguins 1

• Third period is underway.

• Erik Karlsson has 10 shot attempts. Nobody else has more than six. Four are actual shots on goal, too.

• Of the Penguins’ 21 shots on goal, nine are from the third line. Ben Kindel has five, Ville Koivunen three, Rutger McGroarty one (not counting the post).

• In terms of just five-on-five ice time where the whole line is intact, the Sidney Crosby line is the first line, the Danton Heinen line is the second line, the Ben Kindel line is the third line, and the Kevin Hayes line is the fourth line. And that’s not much difference between the Heinen/Kindel lines, just a matter of seconds. Special teams does affect some of that.

• End of the second. Penguins trail, 3-0. Shots are 21-20 Penguins now.

• Rutger McGroarty rang one off the post. 

• I can’t ever remember seeing that. There’s such little time to decide if to challenge a goal, and that one was really iffy. Dan Muse used his timeout to give them more time to make that call.

• No goal. Canadiens 3, Penguins 0

• Oh, that was smart. Penguins are now challenging the goal for offside. The timeout gave them more time to decide. 

• Penguins call timeout after that.

• GOAL: Owen Beck from the right circle. Ryan Graves dropped to block the shot in front of him and just missed. Canadiens 4, Penguins 0

• Connor Clifton just came up big with a block to save a goal and then swept the puck away when he stood up.

• The good news is this probably won’t go to a shootout.

• Nevermind. They looked at it, no goal.

• Pause, Penguins may have scored on the power play. It was missed in real-time but the puck may have snuck in between the pad and post off a Sidney Crosby shot.

• Erik Karlsson with a good chance off a rebound on the power play, but Jacob Fowler makes the save.

• Penguins go back on the power lay with 9:28 left in the second. Jared Davidson for holding.

• GOAL: Cole Caufield capitalizes on the power play from below the goal line. Banked a shot in off Tristan Jarry‘s skates. Canadiens 3, Penguins 0

• Penguins to the PK with 10:31 left in the second. Ville Koivunen is called for a trip off a faceoff.

• At this rate Jacob Fowler might not even see 20 shots on goal in his NHL debut.

• Nothing on the power play.

• Penguins get a power play with 15:02 left in the second. Noah Dobson gets two for slashing.

• That was real close to being offside.

• GOAL: A rebound off a Penguins shot pops out to Joe Veleno, Brendan Gallagher scores off the ensuing rush. Canadiens 2, Penguins 0

• Now Ben Kindel gets a fifth shot on goal for the team. Progress.

• Canadiens with a couple of quick shots to open this period. Not ideal.

• The Penguins four shots are from Anthony Mantha (2), Rutger McGroarty and Justin Brazeau.

• Second period is underway. Both Sidney Crosby and Bryan Rust are still out there after taking shots to the feet last period.

• End of the first. Canadiens 1, Penguins 0, sore feet 2. Shots are 8-4 Canadiens. Weird period. Started out awful. Got less bad as it went on. 

• Shots are tied now, 4-4.

• Great kill. Back to full strength. 

• Now Justin Brazeau takes a holding penalty with 6:12 left in the first. Penguins to the PK.

• TV timeout comes with 8:38 left in the first. Penguins defensemen have shot more off the feet of their own teammates (2) than the team has shots on goal (1).

• Now Erik Karlsson puts a shot off Bryan Rust‘s foot. He finished the shift in pain and is now hunched over on the bench.

• Congratulations to Anthony Mantha, who just got the Penguins’ first shot on goal almost 10 minutes into the game. 

• Sidney Crosby is back out here to start the power play. 

• Penguins to the power play with 10:44 left in the first. Alexandre Carrier gets two for holding Justin Brazeau.

• Sidney Crosby has family in town, by the way. Think they just got into town for this game. He’s six points away from surpassing Mario Lemieux for the franchise points record.

• Sidney Crosby is back on the ice. Wow.

• Now eight minutes in and no shots on goal for the Penguins. Only real attempt was Kris Letang‘s shot off Sidney Crosby‘s foot.

• Sidney Crosby is still on the bench with an athletic trainer. I guess a good sign that he hasn’t left yet.

• Oh, no. Friendly fire shot from Kris Letang hits Sidney Crosby in the left foot. He goes off not putting any weight on it but is on the bench.

• Five minutes in here and Penguins still don’t have a shot on goal.

• GOAL: Canadiens score on their second shot of the game off a Kris Letang turnover in his own end. Alexandre Texier goes bar-down 2:54 in. Canadiens 1, Penguins 0

• This one is underway.

• I have never seen Star Wars. So do not expect any references from me on Star Wars Night. If they ever do a Back to the Future Night, I’ll be all over that.

• Canadiens’ lines and pairings:

Cole Caufield – Nick Suzuki – Zachary Bolduc
Juraj Slafkovsky – Oliver Kapanen – Ivan Demidov
Josh Andersen – Owen Beck – Alexandre Texier
Jared Davidson – Joe Veleno – Brendan Gallagher

Mike Matheson – Noah Dobson
Jayden Struble – Lane Hutson
Adam Engstrom – Alexandre Carrier

• There’s a kid behind the bench with a poster that says “Bonino, my dad is your mailman.” That’s one way to draw attention.

• Yeah, same lines and pairings as last game, same as they used this morning. Matt Dumba and Jack St. Ivany are the extras:

Tommy Novak – Sidney Crosby – Bryan Rust
Anthony Mantha – Kevin Hayes – Justin Brazeau
Rutger McGroarty – Ben Kindel – Ville Koivunen
Connor Dewar – Danton Heinen – Noel Acciari

Parker Wotherspoon – Erik Karlsson
Ryan Shea – Kris Letang
Ryan Graves – Connor Clifton

• All eight defensemen are on the ice for warmups. Usually you only see one extra defenseman out there.

• Jacob Fowler gets the solo rookie lap for Montreal. He takes it without the helmet, too. 

• It’s a 7:38 p.m. start time here now. Bad traffic on I-279 south due to a car accident. Players are caught in traffic.