Who: Pittsburgh Penguins (35-20-16, 86 points, 3rd place Metropolitan Division) @ Ottawa Seantors (38-24-9, 85 points, 5th place Atlantic Division)
When: 7:00 p.m. eastern
How to Watch: Locally broadcast on Sportsnet Pittsburgh, TSN5 and RDS2 up in Canada, streaming on ESPN+
Pens’ Path Ahead: The games keep on coming, the Pens head back to Pittsburgh to face Dallas on Saturday (clock the unusual 5:00pm eastern start). Then next week comes a pair of massive games against the Islanders on Monday on the road,
followed by a home game against Detroit on Tuesday.
Opponent Track: Hot opponent alert! The Sens have won four-straight games, six of their last seven and eight of their last 10. Ottawa defeated Detroit 3-2 on Tuesday night in their most recent game, a huge victory to propel them above the Red Wings in the standings.
Season Series: Ottawa is 2-0 against Pittsburgh this year, winning 4-0 back on December 18th and then 3-2 in regulation in Steel City back on February 2nd.
Hidden Stat: The Pens have lost nine out of their last 11 games against Ottawa (2-5-4) since the start of the 2022-23 season. Pittsburgh is also 1-5-3 since March 2023 and lost their last five games (0-1-4) on the road in Ottawa.
Getting to know the Senators
Projected lines
FORWARDS
Drake Batherson – Tim Stutzle – Claude Giroux
Brady Tkachuk – Dylan Cozens – Ridly Greig
Nick Cousins – Shane Pinto – Michael Amadio
Warren Foegele – Lars Eller – Fabian Zetterlund
DEFENSEMEN
Tyler Kleven / Artem Zub
Nicolas Matinpalo / Jordan Spence
Jorian Donovan / Carter Yakemchuk
Goalies: Linus Ullmark and James Reimer
Potential scratches: Thomas Chabot (injured), Kurtis MacDermid, Stephen Halliday, Lassi Thomson, Dennis Gilbert
Injured Reserve: Jake Sanderson, Nick Jensen
- Ottawa’s recent run has been all the more impressive considering the injuries they’re dealing with on the blueline. USA Olympian Sanderson has been out since March 7th (he’s expected back next week). Chabot just went down with injury over the weekend. It looks bare bones on paper with an assortment of names but they’ve been making it work.
- As a result of the injuries, 21-year old Jorian Donovan and 20-year old Carter Yakemchuk both made their NHL debuts last game. Donovan, a fifth round pick in 2023, is the son of former Penguin (and Senator) Shean Donovan. Yakemchuk was the seventh overall pick in 2024, scoring a goal and adding an assist to have a part in two of the three goals the Senators scored on Tuesday.
- Foegele (4G+1A in his last six games) has found some scoring touch lately. He doesn’t get paid by the hour, averaging only 11:25 per game in this stretch but has been able to step up and chip in key goals for the team.
Season stats
via hockeydb
- Goaltending has been a major issue for Ottawa and huge reason that they underperformed in the first half of the season. That led the club to add 38-year old James Reimer as a free agent in a desperation move to patch things up. Results are mixed (that 2.32 GAA will sure take care of business) and he’s been a moderate upgrade over Leevi Merilainen who couldn’t keep the puck out of the net this season.
- Ullmark has been all over the place but is starting to get the arrow pointed in the right direction. He’s 9-2-2 with a .902 save% and 2.31 GAA since the turn of the calendar year, compared to being 14-8-5 with a .881 save% and 2.95 GAA in the 2025 portion of the 2025-26 season. Even more recently, Ullmark has a .908% and 2.20 GAA in his last six outings. Nothing dominant but certainly an improvement from the start of the year and the Sens are finding ways to keep the goals against down.
- Claude Giroux will keep on annoying the Penguins until he retires. Giroux has 12 points (2G+10A) in eight career games against Pittsburgh as a member of the Senators, including the go-ahead goal with 5:08 to play in the third period last game.
- Tim Stutzle usually confounds the Pens as well (three points in the first two meetings this season) but by his standards he’s been quiet lately with just three points (2G+1A) in his last seven games.
Key Matchup: A strong test for the Penguin defense
The Senators have been a solid team process-wise, they generate a lot of shot attempts, which helps on the other end where they are also No. 1 in the league in xGA due to staying out of their own end and keeping puck control. They also have shown an ability to finish well on all these shots and have a decent power play.
Ottawa is 10-2-2 since the Olympic break, outscoring their opponents on aggregate by a 48-32 margin. The split between shots per game (6th in NHL at a 30.9 average) to shots allowed (2nd in NHL at 22.1) is very impressive.
On the other side, the Penguins have had their share of significant struggles at limiting the opposition recently. Coach Dan Muse summed up the issues after the 6-2 loss to Colorado:
“The quality is too high,” Muse said of opposing scoring chances lately. “It’s just too loud.”
“It’s not chances where it’s to the outside,” Muse said. “It’s plays into the slot. Guys are open there. Some of them are odd-man rushes, whether it’s a breakaway, or some of the other ones that we’re giving. We’ve got to do a better job there in terms of cleaning that up.”
That better job is going to have to start tonight against a very capable opponent who plays in an uptempo style that has given them fits in recent matchups.
And now for the Pens
Projected lines
FORWARDS
Rickard Rakell – Sidney Crosby – Bryan Rust
Egor Chinakhov – Tommy Novak – Anthony Mantha*
Ville Koivunen – Ben Kindel – Justin Brazeau
Elmer Soderblom – Connor Dewar – Noel Acciari
DEFENSEMEN
Parker Wotherspoon / Erik Karlsson
Sam Girard / Kris Letang
Ryan Shea / Connor Clifton
Goalies: Stuart Skinner and Arturs Silovs
Potential Scratches: Evgeni Malkin (injured), Ilya Solovyov, Blake Lizotte (injured), Kevin Hayes, Ryan Graves
IR: Filip Hallander, Jack St. Ivany
- No sign of Malkin on the ice for the Pens at practice yesterday, which afterwards Muse confirmed Malkin won’t travel with the team on their quick trip to Ottawa. Even worse Mantha was out with a day-to-day injury, but will at least be with the team and seemingly have a chance to play today.
- Mantha’s performance bonus adds an additional $250,000 for every 10-games played. He hasn’t missed a game all season so far. He could only miss two games over the course of the year to still pick up the full bonus money by getting to 80 total games, so here’s betting whatever injury he has will be one that he won’t let keep him out of the lineup for too long, or if it does you know it will be painful in more ways than one if Mantha has to be out for three games over the rest of the season. Whether or not that first absence will happen tonight remains to be seen, Kevin Hayes took Mantha’s spot in practice yesterday in perhaps a hopeful sign that lines weren’t disrupted for early plans to adjust.
- In the FWIW category, Pens PR points out that Stuart Skinner has a 6-1-0 record in seven games played against Ottawa and he has a .903 save percentage and 2.71 goals against average.
- Also, somewhat interestingly, Erik Karlsson has no goals and only seven points in 15 career games against the Ottawa franchise where he played from 2009-18.
Crosby nearing 1,100 assists
Sidney Crosby has 1,098 career assists and figures to become the third fastest player via games played to get to the 1,100 mark once he gets two more helpers. There’s more history is soon to come, with 1,751 points Crosby enters the night four points behind Steve Yzerman’s 1,755. Yzerman currently sits seventh place in all-time league scoring and sixth place Marcel Dionne (1,771) isn’t too far ahead either.
