Who: Pittsburgh Penguins (5-2-0, 10 points, 3rd place Metropolitan Division) @ Florida Panthers (4-4-0, 8 points, 3rd place Atlantic Division)

How to Watch: Broadcast in the local markets on Sportsnet Pittsburgh and Scripps Net, streaming on ESPN+

Pens’ Path Ahead: The Pens are in a very busy stretch to squeeze games in before their trip to Sweden next month. Tuesday night kicked off a span where they will play eight games over just 14 days. The Pens return back home for the next two games (seeing Columbus on Saturday then St. Louis on Monday) before hitting the road next week to play Tuesday in Philadelphia and a week from tonight in Minnesota. The Pens will then stay on the road for more dates against Winnipeg and Toronto after that.

Opponent Track: Florida broke a four-game losing streak via a win over the Bruins in Brad Marchand’s emotional return to Boston as a visiting player. The Panthers won on a last minute, fluky play that has to be seen to be believed.

Season Series: Tonight’s game will be it for a while, FLA/PIT doesn’t play again until April 4th in Pittsburgh and then they’ll back-to-back it with a game in Florida the following day on April 5th to close out the three-game season series. The Pens went 1-0-2 last year against the Cup champions, playing three very close games. The Pens won the first in OT but lost two shootouts to take four total points in the three games (the Panthers record was 2-0-1 in the games to secure five points).

Hidden Stat: Florida is 30th in the NHL with 2.38 goals per game in the early going of this season, compared to the Penguins at 3.29 goals/game (10th).

Hidden Stat 2.0: The Panthers are 1-4-0 on the road this season compared to a perfect 3-0-0 at home.

Getting to know the Panthers

Carter Verhaeghe – Sam Bennett – Sam Reinhart

Eetu Luostarinen – Anton Lundell – Brad Marchand

Mackie Samoskevich – Evan Rodrigues – Jesper Boqvist

A.J. Greer – Luke Kunin – Jonah Gadjovich

Gustav Forsling / Aaron Ekblad

Niko Mikkola / Seth Jones

Uvis Balinskis / Jeff Petry

Goalies: Sergei Bobrovsky and Daniil Tarasov

Potential scratches: Cole Schwindt, Tobias Bjornfot, Donovan Sebrango

Injured reserve: Aleksander Barkov, Matthew Tkachuk, Dmitry Kulikov, Tomas Nosek

  • Playing without $19.5 million of cap hits from Barkov and Tkachuk leaves a big void in this lineup. Tkachuk’s absence was expected as he deals with another rehab from surgery but Barkov going down at the eve of the season with a knee injury would be the type of blow on top of that which few teams could withstand. The Panthers are still fairly decent on paper but lack that championship pedigree from having such impact players on the shelf.
  • Interestingly, Barkov was off of crutches very soon after his ACL surgery and the Panthers did not place him on the new full-season LTIR which would have allowed them to replace his entire cap hit, instead taking the max $3.8m benefit and leaving his return as an option. It was said he would be out 7-9 months, which could align with a playoff return.
  • With the Panthers being cap-strapped, it will be interesting to see how they manage this season. Presumably they won’t have the ability to make the flashy adds of the past, they’ll likely need internal growth from players like Lundell and Samoskevich to step up.

Lundell and Marchand have continued their magic from last playoff, but a lot of the top Florida players have had a slow start when looking at the likes of Reinhart, Verhaeghe and Bennett. The absences of Tkachuk and Barkov as elite players is certainly felt here, Samoskevich has had a nice start to the year but others with added opportunity like Luostarinen and Boqvist haven’t been very productive.

In goal, it’s been a smooth start for Bobrovsky, but choppy going in the first few appearances for newly acquired backup Tarasov. The Panthers play Vegas at home on Saturday in their next game, you’d figure Bobrovsky will be in net for sure for that, will they start leaning on his playing team in an 80/20 split through the first two games by playing him in both? We’ll see if the Pens avoid seeing Bobrovsky or not, the Panthers usually manage his workload a bit more, and at age-37 he’s no spring chicken. Then again, the team needs to win games and he gives them the best chance, so it’ll be interesting to track just how much they put on his plate in the early going of this season.

Rickard Rakell – Sidney Crosby – Bryan Rust

Anthony Mantha – Evgeni Malkin – Justin Brazeau

Tommy Novak – Ben Kindel – Filip Hallander

Connor Dewar – Blake Lizotte – Noel Acciari

Parker Wotherspoon / Erik Karlsson

Caleb Jones / Harrison Brunicke

Goalies: Tristan Jarry and Arturs Silovs

Potential Scratches: Philip Tomasino, Connor Clifton, Mathew Dumba

IR: Kevin Hayes (upper body), Jack St. Ivany (lower body), Rutger McGroarty (upper body), Joel Blomqvist (lower body)

  • The Penguins held an optional practice yesterday before traveling down to Florida. We’ll have to see on any changes, if the goalie rotation continues to hold up that would mean it’s Tristan Jarry’s turn to play tonight.

Game focus
via Advanced Hockey Stats

Florida finishing struggles vs hot Pittsburgh goaltending

It stands out as a key matchup is that Florida generates a lot (6th in expected 5v5 goals) but fails to finish — only 27th in actual goals. That, of course, is the price to pay for two point+ per game scorers in Barkov and Tkachuk disappear from the lineup due to injury— the team’s skill level is naturally going to suffer.

On the flip side, Pittsburgh has given up plenty of shot attempts and even expected goals against but received great goaltending so far from the tandem of Jarry and Silovs.

Does this early-season trend continue tonight for both sides? If so, the Pens goalie would probably have a stat line of something like 30 saves on 32 shots and continue to add to the frustrations that the Panthers have seen in recent games. As a disclaimer, all games don’t play exactly to type, and anything could happen, that’s just the key stat element that lined up well for both teams heading into tonight’s game.