Who: Buffalo Sabres (36-19-6, 78 points, 2nd place Atlantic Division) @ Pittsburgh Penguins
(31-16-13, 75 points, 2nd place Metropolitan Division)When: 7:00 p.m. eastern
How to Watch: National game on ESPN, streaming on ESPN+
Pens’ Path Ahead: Another weekend back-to-back awaits, this time with home games against the Flyers on Saturday (5:30pm start) and then the clocks jump forward for a body 22-hour-later 4:30pm Sunday start against the Bruins. After that, the Pens start a five-game road trip from
March 10-18 that begins and ends in Carolina with a lot of miles in between (Vegas next Thursday, Utah next Saturday and Colorado the following Monday) stops in the Tarheel state.
Opponent Track: In a sea of surprising teams this season, no team is more shockingly over-performing original expectations than the once-lowly Sabres. It’s looking like Western NY will see the playoffs for the first time since 2011, their Sabres have won all four games coming out of the Olympic break and showing no signs of slowing down. Most recently Buffalo beat Vegas 3-2 on Tuesday, they also took down both Florida teams on the road last week.
Season Series: The Penguins are 2-0 against Buffalo, looking for a season sweep tonight after beating Buffalo 4-2 back on November 26th and taking a 5-2 win on February 5th. Lately beating up on the Sabres would garner a shrug, it stands out a lot more this year.
Silly Stat: The Pens are 7-2-1 with their yellow third jerseys this season. For an even deeper dive, the Pens happen to be 6-0-0 on Thursday’s on the same day ‘The Pitt’, an HBOMax hospital drama set in Pittsburgh, has been released. That streak will be on the line with another episode of the show coming out today.
Getting to know the Sabres
Projected lines
FORWARDS
Peytron Krebs – Tage Thompson – Alex Tuch
Jason Zucker – Ryan McLeod – Jack Quinn
Noah Ostlund – Josh Norris – Josh Doan
Zach Benson – Tyson Kozak – Brock Malenstyn
DEFENSEMEN
Matthias Samuelsson / Rasmus Dahlin
Bowen Byram / Owen Power
Zach Metsa / Michael Kesselring
Goalies: Alex Lyon, Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen and Colten Ellis
Potential scratches: Josh Dunne, Jacob Bryson
Injured Reserve: Conor Timmins, Jordan Greenway, Justin Danforth, Jiri Kulich
- The Sabres are uniquely constructed in that all four of their best defensemen happen to be left handed. That might be about to change — as of 9:00pm last night St. Louis and Buffalo reportedly have a trade made, pending Colton Parayko’s no trade clause approval, to send the Team Canada member east. Seems doubtful Parayko would make it to Pittsburgh and play tonight if the transaction gets hammered out in time but if he decides to come it will finally add a marquee right shot defender to the club.
- Assuming he’s not a part of the incomplete-at-press-time trade, this will be Josh Norris’s fifth game back from his latest injury (2G+1A in the first four back, including a two-goal effort against Tampa last week) and his first time playing against the Pens since the preseason. Can’t get over how dominant he was in those games, if Norris can stay in the lineup (he’s only played 23 games this season) he could add a whole new dimension to Buffalo’s attack. Unfortunately, staying in the lineup for prolonged periods of time has been a weakness to this point.
- Speaking of injuries, an underrated part of the Penguins flipping Timmins for the 39th pick in last year’s draft is in the timing. Timmins’ career has been checkered by injuries. Other than last year’s 68 total games between PIT/TOR, his previous seasons of games played (combining NHL and AHL) are: 42, 37, 6, 33, 25 and now 33, not counting a full season missed at what should have been the start of his career in 2018-19. To get a good draft piece from a guy who has missed more time than he played was a nice outcome for Pittsburgh, though sad to see Timmins land back on the IR again.
Season stats
via hockeydb
- Lyon and Luukkonen have split the last four games since the Olympic break, with each playing twice and each playing rather well (Lyon has allowed four goals in his two games, Luukkonen gave up only three, both with save percentages north of .948% in the small sample). That means the Pens figure to see a goalie in good form tonight, no matter which one Buffalo decides to play.
- Jack Hughes obviously had the ultimate star turn for the Olympics with his golden goal, a level down from there Tage Thompson was really good too. Thompson has kept it in gear, scoring 3G+2A in four games since returning. He also found the back of the net in the last PIT/BUF game in early February.
- Rasmus Dahlin is always a visible player, he’s out there over 24 minutes per game for starters. Dahlin has put up 1G+4A in the last two games. When listing the reasons of ‘why is Buffalo good now’, pretty high up on the list is Dahlin who has put up 33 points (10G+23A) in the last 31 games of this growing sample of the Sabres’ becoming a wagon.
Key to the game: Sabres shooting vs. Pittsburgh defense/goalie
Since Buffalo’s turnaround on December 9th (they’re 25-5-2 since then, easily the best record in the league since that point), they’re shooting an NHL-high 13.9%. They don’t tend to dominate the puck and crush teams in that regard — their average shots per game are 27.0 – 30.2 in this stretch — but when they do create chances, they have been finishing them with impressive frequency.
That could be an issue for Pittsburgh, or certainly an area to watch- we saw them get disconnected and overreact in a five-man tandem all chasing the puck like peewees after they overcommitted to a corner in the first place against Boston on Casey Mittlestadt’s goal. That caused Dan Muse to use his timeout to somewhat uncharacteristically shout and chastise his team over the lapse. The Pens didn’t give up a goal or play a sequence that bad again against the Bruins, but by that point the damage was done. Any slips like that tonight are more than likely going to wind up in the net with the way the Sabres have been playing in the offensive zone this season. It’s tough to play a completely perfect and clean game against NHL-caliber competition, especially for a team like the Sabres that has grown immensely with their confidence and ability to strike. The Pens and their attention to detail will have their work cut out for them tonight, how they’re able to handle that could tip the balance in this tilt.
And now for the Pens
Projected lines
FORWARDS
Egor Chinakhov – Tommy Novak – Evgeni Malkin
Rickard Rakell – Ben Kindel – Bryan Rust
Anthony Mantha – Kevin Hayes – Justin Brazeau
Avery Hayes – Connor Dewar – Noel Acciari
DEFENSEMEN
Parker Wotherspoon / Erik Karlsson
Sam Girard / Kris Letang
Ryan Shea / Connor Clifton
Goalies: Arturs Silovs (Stuart Skinner played last game)
Potential Scratches: Blake Lizotte (day-to-day injury), Ryan Graves, Ilya Solovyov
IR: Sidney Crosby, Filip Hallander, Jack St. Ivany
- The Penguins had an off day yesterday after returning from Boston. They now gear up for another stretch of three-games-in-four days starting today after just ending a three-in-four stretch on Tuesday. And the beat goes on..
- Is it too early to hope Lizotte’s day-to-day injury is on the shorter end for a return tonight? Possibly, though more information could be revealed by potential participation at the morning skate coming up. The team could surely use Lizotte coming back ASAP given the state of their center depth chart these days that contains possibly only two actual NHL-quality centers (Dewar has certainly been an NHL-quality winger, filling in on a pinch, to his credit, and Kevin Hayes, well, he is a great guy!)..A three day recovery for Lizotte to make it back in time for tonight feels a little more on the hopeful end of the spectrum than anything else, but it doesn’t cost anything to hope.
Geno with the home cookin’
No one has felt more at home on their own ice these days than Evgeni Malkin, currently on a 10-game point streak at PPG Paints. From Pens PR:
Evgeni Malkin has been hot at home as of late with 12 points (2G-10A) in his last 10 games. He currently has the longest active home point streak in the NHL:
Longest Active Home Point Streaks, NHL
Name Streak Dates G A PTS
Evgeni Malkin 10 Jan. 8 – Present 2 10 12
Rasmus Dahlin 8 Jan. 12 – Present 2 8 10
Tim Stutzle 7 Jan. 13 – Present 4 6 10
Matt Boldy 7 Jan. 15 – Present 2 9 11
Quinn Hughes 7 Jan. 22 – Present 1 11 12With a point tonight, Malkin would have his first home point streak of at least 11 games since January 20 – February 26, 2022 (11 GP; 5G-8A). He has the longest home point streak this season by a Penguin.
Playoff implications
It’s that time of year to white-knuckle it over every out of town score and point gained or lost. Here’s what hockeystats.com has with their model for the Pens’ outlook based on tonight, entering the day with an 85% chance of the playoffs
Based on this game alone the percentages go up by five points with a win, down four with a regulation loss and hold serve with an OT/SO loss. The next game against Philadelphia (still a mathematical challenge to the Pens’ spot in the Metropolitan Division) will figure to be a more statistically important game, but the biggest one is always the next one on deck.
