Game Preview: Pittsburgh Penguins @ Vancouver Canucks 10/26/2024

The Pens are trying to snap a four-game losing streak in the second half of a back-to-back set.

Who: Pittsburgh Penguins (3-5-1, 7 points) @ Vancouver Canucks (3-1-2, 8 points)

When: 10:00 p.m. ET

How to Watch: CBC, SN, CITY north of the border, SN-PIT in the Pittsburgh market, streaming on ESPN+ outside of it

Pens’ Path Ahead: The Penguins are headed back to Pittsburgh and will spend the next week at PPG Paints Arena, starting on Tuesday against the Minnesota Wild followed by a Halloween night contest against the Anaheim Ducks.

Opponent Track: After starting out the season with three straight losses, including two in extra time, the Canucks are riding a three-game win streak into Saturday’s matchup. Vancouver hasn’t played since Tuesday, when the team claimed a 6-3 win over the Chicago Blackhawks on the road, and will now look to earn their first home victory against the visiting Pens.

Season Series: Both games of this series went to overtime last season. The Penguins lost 4-3 at home in January before winning 4-3 on the road the following month.

Getting to know the Canucks

Projected lines (from Friday’s practice)

FORWARDS

Jake DeBrusk — JT Miller — Brock Boeser

Nils Höglander — Elias Pettersson — Conor Garland

Danton Heinen — Teddy Blueger — Kiefer Sherwood

Arshdeep Bains — Nils Åman — Pius Suter

DEFENSEMEN

Quinn Hughes / Filip Hronek

Carson Soucy / Tyler Myers

Erik Brännström / Vincent Desharnais

Goalies: Kevin Lankinen, Arturs Silovs

Possible scratches: Daniel Sprong

IR: Dakota Joshua, Thatcher Demko

• Former Penguins Danton Heinen and Teddy Blueger are playing together on the Canucks’ third line, and Heinen is coming out of his best performance of the season following a two-goal outing against the Blackhawks. Second-line winger Conor Garland called the Blueger line the Canucks’ “best line by a mile” in Tuesday’s win. Meanwhile former Penguin Daniel Sprong has fallen out of the lineup and looks to be a healthy scratch for the fourth time this season.

• Recent reports seem to indicate that starting netminder Thatcher Demko is not close to returning from an injury that has reportedly impacted his stability, which will leave the Canucks leaning on Kevin Lankinen and Arturs Silovs for now.

Silovs, who was a bright spot during the Canucks’ playoff run last spring, struggled through the early stretch of the season. Lankinen, who backed up the Nashville Predators’ Juuse Saros last season, then took over to lead the Canucks to three straight wins.

Given the extended break between his last start on Tuesday and the Saturday night home game, the Canucks could decide to go with the hot goaltender in Lankinen, or else give Silovs a shot at earning his first win of the season.

Player stats

(via hockeydb)

• Elias Pettersson has just nine shots on goal through six games. Even when including the postseason he hasn’t scored at even strength since March 19 (as noted by Patrick Johnston of The Province) and has yet to score in any capacity this regular season. NHL insider Elliott Friedman recently said that Pettersson is being sent, and potentially impacted by, social media criticism regarding his production slump.

Vancouver media was most recently zeroing in on a reported “testy exchange” between Pettersson and JT Miller at a Wednesday practice:

Miller himself didn’t seem interested in furthering the story:

• Tyler Myers recently skated in his 1,000th NHL game during the Canucks’ 3-0 shutout of the Philadelphia Flyers on Oct. 17. The team will be honoring the milestone with a celebration on Saturday night.

Canadian momentum

The 0-3 Canucks from last week and the 3-3 Canucks headed home to face Pittsburgh looked like two different teams following Tuesday’s 6-3 win over the Blackhawks. As The Athletic’s Thomas Drance put it:

We saw this team explode offensively on occasion last season, but a four-goal period from the 2023-24 Canucks would most often include a deflection, another bouncer, an unscreened rush wrist shot and some sort of incredible individual effort from one of the superstar-level players. The goals were there, but their method of production never felt quite as impressive or sustainable as what the team manufactured against the Blackhawks on Tuesday night.

Part of that production likely came from playing an opponent like the Blackhawks (2-5, with a goal differential of minus-7 as of Saturday.) But the positive offensive momentum and depth scoring is still something the Canucks will look to build on against the Pens.

And now for the Pens

Projected lines (from Friday’s game)

FORWARDS

Drew O’Connor - Sidney Crosby - Bryan Rust

Michael Bunting - Evgeni Malkin - Rickard Rakell

Anthony Beauvillier - Lars Eller - Cody Glass

Kevin Hayes - Noel Acciari - Jesse Puljujarvi

DEFENSEMEN

Marcus Pettersson / Kris Letang

Matt Grzelcyk / Erik Karlsson

Ryan Graves / Jack St. Ivany

Goalies: Alex Nedeljkovic (Joel Blomqvist started last night against the Oilers)

Potential Scratches: Ryan Shea, Valtteri Puustinen

Sent home: Tristan Jarry

IR: Matt Nieto (knee surgery), Blake Lizotte, Vasily Ponomarev

• Cody Glass left Friday night’s loss due to illness, according to the Penguins. Look out for word today on his availability. Should he sit out tonight’s game Valtteri Puustinen could get the call back into the lineup.
• As noted by NHL media, this matchup pits the past two Norris Trophy winners against one another with Erik Karlsson slated to take on reigning top defenseman Quinn Hughes.
• The Penguins have allowed no fewer than four goals in each of their last four games, and have been overall outscored 18-7 over these last four losses. No matter how well Alex Nedeljkovic does tonight, the Pens will need to find some answers other than goaltending on both offense and defense in order to recover from this slump.