Who: Pittsburgh Penguins
(2-2-0, 4 points, 4th place Metropolitan Division) @ Columbus Blue Jackets (1-1-0, 2 points, 5th place Metropolitan Division)When: 7:30 p.m. eastern
How to Watch: Locally televised game on Sportsnet Pittsburgh and CBJNHL, streaming for out of market at ESPN+
Pens’ Path Ahead: The Pens head home to play Dallas tomorrow night, then get ready to depart for a week-long western trip that starts in Chicago next Tuesday and continues to Colorado, Vegas and Utah in what should be some
challenging games ahead.
Opponent Track: Strange schedule for Columbus, they’re coming off a five-day break, having not played since last Saturday’s 4-1 home loss to Utah. Prior to that, their only other game was a 6-3 win against Buffalo last Thursday. The Blue Jackets have to hit the road and play in St. Louis tomorrow night, but they only will have played five games going into October 17th. (By contrast, tonight is already Pittsburgh’s fifth game of the season).
Season Series: There will be another early-ish game between these teams when they meet again in Pittsburgh on November 30th. They take a long break before seeing each other in a quick span in March (16+22) and that will do it.
Hidden Stat: Pittsburgh is 24-3-6 in its last 33 games against Columbus dating back to Feb. 3, 2017, per Penguins PR.
Getting to know the Blue Jackets
Projected lines
FORWARDS
Matthew Knies – Adam Fantilli – Kent Johnson
Valeri Nichushkin – Sean Monahan – Dmitri Voronkov
Cole Sillinger – Charlie Coyle – Mathieu Olivier
Ryan Lomberg – Danton Heinen – Conor Garland
DEFENSEMEN
Zach Werenski / Damon Severson
Carson Soucy / Denton Mateychuk
Emil Andrae / Erik Gudbranson
Goalies: Jet Greaves and Cam Talbot
Potential scratches: Luca Del Bel Belluz, Jake Christensen
Injured Reserve: Ivan Provorov, Dante Fabbro, Isac Lundestrom
- The injury bug has been biting on the blueline, Severson is expected to make his season debut tonight, Provorov and Fabbro have also been out for the whole season so far. It’s the first major injury issue for Provorov, who completed 10 NHL seasons and only missed three total games (all for COVID related reasons in 2021-22).
- The blockbuster trade of Kirill Marchenko for Matthew Knies shook the roster up in a major way, getting Columbus a younger and more powerful winger out of the deal.
- Greaves has played both of the CBJ games so far and probably figures to go again tonight. 39 year old Cam Talbot is the current backup and found a way to hang around for a long time.
- Columbus gave up a future second and third round pick to get Garland last March, his placement in the lineup is interesting. Garland, who scored consistently 45-52 points with Vancouver for four years from 2021-25 only has seven points in 23 career games with the Blue Jackets. He’s their fifth highest-paid forward and still looking for his first shot on goal this season, averaging only 12:26 in ice time in the first two games.
Season stats
via hockeydb
- Knies did most of his damage so far in the first game (2G+1A) to make an instant splash. The focus on big trades is often about how the teams did, individually the career move might work out for Knies to try to work more as the guy on a team instead of getting lost in the mix on a club with huge names eating up all the oxygen as bigger options.
- Kent Johnson went from a 57-point breakout season in 2024-25 to just 22 points in 76 games last season. They’ll need the former fifth overall pick to revert back to that previous level this time around.
- A lot of eyes will be on Fantilli this year after he missed camp time to secure a huge contract ($82.5 million for six seasons). He’ll need to continue on his upward trend (27 points as rookie to 54 up to 59 last year) to justify that type of commitment.
And now for the Pens
Projected lines
via the end of last game
FORWARDS
Rickard Rakell – Sidney Crosby – Bryan Rust
Egor Chinakhov – Tommy Novak – Evgeni Malkin
Ville Koivunen – Ben Kindel – Hendrix Lapierre
Connor Dewar – Blake Lizotte – Nick Robertson
DEFENSEMEN
Declan Carlile / Erik Karlsson
Sam Girard / Kaeden Korczak
Trevor van Riemsdyk / Kris Letang
Goalies: Sergei Murashov and Arturs Silovs
Potential Scratches: Elmer Soderblom, Ilya Solovyov and Spencer Stastney
IR: Ryan Graves, Justin Brazeau
Non-Roster: Andrei Kuzmenko
- The Penguins cancelled a scheduled practice yesterday. Once they get through today and tomorrow they only play once in a five day stretch from Oct 11-15. We’ll get a better idea this morning at their pre-game skate if there will be any lineup changes or edits to the lines themselves.
- Kuzmenko will be off the roster and won’t play tonight but sounded like the plan was for him back for Tuesday’s game.
- Since there’s another game coming up tomorrow, one would think this would be a good spot for Murashov to get in the net. Then again, for strategic purposes of playing a division rival tonight and strong out-of-conference foe tomorrow, perhaps the decision goes the other way to use Silovs tonight.
Tom Terrific
Tommy Novak is off to a hot start with five points in the first four games. From Pens PR:
Tommy Novak found the back of the net for the third time this year, giving him a team-leading five points (3G-2A) over his first four games. Entering his fifth game tonight, it’s already the most points that Novak has accumulated through five games in his career:
Most Points Through First 5 Games of the Season
Season GP G A PTS
2026-27 4 3 2 5
2022-23 5 2 2 4
2021-22 5 3 0 3
2024-25 5 2 0 2
2023-24 5 2 0 2
