Who: Nashville Predators (3-3-3, 9 points, 7th Central Division) @ Pittsburgh Penguins (4-6-1, 9 points, 6th place Metropolitan Division)
When: 7:00 p.m. ET
How to Watch: Locally televised game on Sportsnet Pittsburgh and Scripps, streaming for out of market at ESPN+
Pens’ Path Ahead: The Penguins have a rare stretch of four days off before returning Thursday for another home game, this time against the Utah Mammoth.
Opponent Track: The Predators have lost four of their last five games in a 1-2-2 stretch
that included two shootout defeats. The Preds most recently conceded a 6-0 shootout at the Boston Bruins.
Season Series: The Penguins and Predators will meet again next month during a November 21 game in Nashville.
Hidden Stat: The Penguins are heading into tonight’s matchup on a nine-game point streak against the Predators, having gone 7-0-2 against Nashville in a stretch dating back to April 2022.
Getting to know the Predators
Projected lines (based on Friday’s practice)
FORWARDS
Steven Stamkos – Ryan O’Reilly – Matthew Wood
Filip Forsberg – Mavrik Bourque – Jonathan Marchessault
Ross Colton – Alex Kerfoot – Nils Hoglander
Reid Schaefer – Jack Drury – Adam Edstrom
DEFENSEMEN
Roman Josi / Adam Wilsby
Nicolas Hague / Jayden Struble
Brady Skjei / Nick Perbix
Goalies: Juuse Saros, Justus Annunen
Potential scratches: Jack Ahcan, Nick Perbix, Vitali Pinchuk, Ilya Lyubushkin
Injured Reserve: William Trudeau (upper body, week-to-week)
- Juuse Saros sat out his second game of the season in the shutout loss to the Bruins, so he might be getting the call against the Penguins. He is 4-6-1 with a .914 save percentage and 2.73 goals against average in 13 career games against the Pens.
The Predators are coming out of what coach Andrew Brunette called his team’s “worst effort of the year by far” in their 6-0 loss to the Bruins. He had some harsh words for his players after Thursday’s loss, per NHL.com’s Joe McDonald:
“We need a few more guys playing hockey. We had too many passengers tonight and probably almost all of them. It’s disappointing. We knew coming in this is a big stretch of hockey, a big month for our group. We knew that, but we forgot to play hockey tonight.”
It’s early, but Nashville’s 3-3-3 start is underwhelming for a team that had the goal of retooling into a contender this summer after Chris MacFarland was hired to succeed Barry Trotz as the team’s general manager in June. Longtime Predator Filip Forsberg called MacFarland’s hiring “a breath of fresh air” after the GM started off his tenure by making nine trades in five months, per The Athletic’s Pierre LeBrun.
A few key aspects of the Predators remained the same this offseason, however. Brunette, who has led the Predators to a 118-111-26 record across parts of four seasons, is still in place as head coach. And the team’s veteran core of Steven Stamkos, Roman Josi, Filip Forsberg and Ryan O’Reilly is back for another run together.
Whether these four players, who currently sit atop the Predators production leaderboard, remain in Nashville this season looks like a similar situation to that of players like Rickard Rakell and Erik Karlsson in Pittsburgh— should the team drop out of postseason contention entirely, they could potentially be on the trade block this winter.
O’Reilly is a pending UFA next season. Incumbent 42-goal scorer Stamkos has two years remaining on his deal, although he said last season there was “zero” chance he would waive his full no-movement clause for a trade. The Predators may need to prove they can compete for a higher spot in the Central Division in order to keep either from becoming the subject of trade rumors down the stretch of the season.
Season stats
via hockeydb
- Stamkos, who is 29 goals behind Sidney Crosby for the second-most among active players, is two power play goals shy of tying Phil Esposito’s career mark of 246 for the sixth most in NHL history. He has tied for the team lead with four goals in nine games, including a 6-on-5 buzzer-beater in what was ultimately a shootout loss to the San Jose Sharks last week.
Speaking of the power play, the Penguins will have plenty of motivation not to take any unnecessary penalties tonight. The Predators rank fourth in the NHL with a 28.6 scoring rate on the man advantage. The penalty kill is also humming along at an 83.3 success rate, which ties with the Penguins for seventh-best in the league.
That hasn’t been enough to cover for the team’s struggles at even strength. The Preds have tallied an NHL-low 10 goals at 5v5 through their first nine games of the season.
The Predators could prevent a good test for a Penguins defense that is coming off one of the unit’s stronger performances of the season against the Panthers. The Pens are looking to improve at even strength after having allowed the fifth-most 5v5 goals against in the NHL with 26 through 11 games.
And now for the Pens
Projected lines
FORWARDS
Tommy Novak – Sidney Crosby – Rickard Rakell
Ville Koivunen – Hendrix Lapierre – Evgeni Malkin (?)
Andrei Kuzmenko – Blake Lizotte – Rutger McGroarty
Elmer Soderblom – Connor Dewar – Nick Robertson
DEFENSEMEN
Spencer Stastney / Erik Karlsson
Declan Carlile / Kaeden Korczak
Ilya Solovyov / Kris Letang
Goalies: Arturs Silovs and Sergei Murashov
Potential Scratches: Sam Girard (day to day), Egor Chinakhov (day to day, lower body), Chase Pietila, Avery Hayes (?)
IR: Ryan Graves, Justin Brazeau, Trevor van Riemsdyk, Bryan Rust (lower body), Ben Kindel
- Neither Egor Chinakhov (lower body) nor Evgeni Malkin (illness) participated in Friday’s practice. It looks like Rutger McGroarty saw some power play time in Malkin’s absence:
- After shuffling the lines ahead of Thursday’s shoutout of the Florida Panthers, the Penguins might be forced to make some more changes should Malkin need more time to recover despite seeing some early chemistry between him and Hendrix Lapierre on the second line.
- On that note, Avery Hayes was scratched from the Wilkes-Barre/Penguins’ Friday lineup. Coach Kirk MacDonald said after the game Hayes had been called up to Pittsburgh, per Inside AHL Hockey’s Tony Androckitis. Hayes has yet to make his season debut after appearing in 16 games of the Penguins’ 2025-26 campaign.
