Who: New Jersey Devils (28-28-2, 58 points, 7th place Metropolitan Division) @ Pittsburgh Penguins (29-15-12, 70 points, 2nd place Metropolitan Division)

How to Watch: Locally broadcast on Sportsnet Pittsburgh and MSG, streaming on ESPN+

Pens’ Path Ahead: Well, hopefully everyone enjoyed the time off because the schedule goes bonkers from here. This is the start of a stretch of three games in four days, four in six and all the way up to 12 games in 21 days before the next time the Pens get two consecutive days off (Mar 19-20). Next up will be two matinee games (12:30pm @NYR on Saturday, followed by a home 1:00pm start against Vegas on Sunday). Then comes a quick trip to Boston for a game next Tuesday before three-straight home games next week.

Opponent Track: The Devils played last night at home against Buffalo dropping a 2-1 game. They’ll stay on the road after tonight to head out to St. Louis on Saturday.

Season Series: The Pens carry a 1-0-1 record against NJD so far this season, first losing a 2-1 shootout game in Jersey on November 8th before taking a 4-1 home victory on January 8th. The teams meet up one final time after tonight on April 9th in NJ for what will be Game No. 79 for the Pens.

Hidden Stat: Bryan Rust has 34 points (18G+16A) and in 42 career games against the Devils. It’s the most points he’s picked up versus any one team, per Pens PR. Today would definitely be a good day for Rust to continue his success against this familiar opponent.

Getting to know the Devils

Timo Meier – Nico Hischier – Dawson Mercer

Jesper Bratt – Jack Hughes – Connor Brown

Arseni Gritsyuk – Cody Glass – Lenni Hameenaho

Paul Cotter – Nick Bjugstad – Vladimir Tsplakov

Brett Pesce / Jonathan Kovacevic

Jonas Siegenthaler / Dougie Hamilton

Brenden Dillon / Simon Nemec

Goalies: Jacob Markstrom (Jake Allen started yesterday)

Potential scratches: Luke Glendening, Evgenii Dadonov, Colton White

Injured Reserve: Luke Hughes, Stefan Noesen, Zack MacEwen

New Jersey gets the benefit of this not being their first game back from the break, coming with the trade off of having to play and travel last night. As always it’ll be interesting to see how that goes, especially early on for a Pens team that will have to shake off rust and perhaps weather an early storm.
The Devils recently acquired Bjugstad, doubling their number of tall, lumbering, bottom-six former Penguin centers.
Hameenaho is an unfamiliar name with a handful of games and points so far. The 20-year old Finn was a second round pick in 2023 and has been making some waves in his first North American season. The scouring report on the 6’0, 173 pound winger is that he’s well-rounded and decent across the board but without any particular standout skill.

(Note: Does not include the stats from last night’s game vs BUF)

It’s high time to get it in gear for the Devils, who came back from the Olympics in 15th place out of the 16 Eastern Conference teams and a whopping 11 points away from a playoff berth. They’re looking at needing something akin to a 2009 ‘18-4-3 Penguins under Dan Bylsma’ type of finish to get back in the playoff mix at this point, to which it might already be a little too late to realistically accomplish.
Somehow, on whatever factors of health, chemistry, cohesion, coaching, management, it just hadn’t added up right in New Jersey this season. It was pretty wild to see many Devils have great Olympics: there was of course Jack Hughes with his golden goal, Jacob Markstrom played well for Sweden as their primary goaltender, Timo Meier looked as good as he has in a while for the Swiss, Simon Nemec popped out for the Slovaks, even recently traded Ondrej Palat played much better than he had for the Devils…Yet somehow the ‘sum of the parts’ seem lesser for NJ than the individual pieces on hand.

Key to the game: Keep the Jersey devil down

The Devils have been inept offensively at 5v5 this season, those struggles have weighed them down within games. The real key to the game might be how the Penguins handle the first game of not having Sidney Crosby (more on this below), but for now we’ll focus on the season trends.

Will the break ignite talented Devil players like Hischier, Hughes, Bratt and Meier? A lineup like they have should not be struggling to produce goals this deep into the season, yet it presented very little finishing ability up to this point. The reset could change everything and make them a lot more dangerous than they’ve shown thus far, though it looked like more of the same with last night’s result of one goal on 28 shots. Will they start putting it together now that they’ve had a game back and the Pens haven’t? The answer to that will go a long way in deciding this game.

Avery Hayes – Rickard Rakell – Bryan Rust

Egor Chinakhov – Tommy Novak – Evgeni Malkin

Anthony Mantha – Ben Kindel – Justin Brazeau

Connor Dewar – Blake Lizotte – Noel Acciari

Parker Wotherspoon / Erik Karlsson

Samuel Girard / Kris Letang

Ryan Shea / Connor Clifton

Goalies: Arturs Silovs and Stuart Skinner

Potential Scratches: Kevin Hayes, Ryan Graves, Ilya Solovyov

IR: Sidney Crosby, Filip Hallander, Jack St. Ivany

The Penguins will have to press on for a while without Sidney Crosby, with the first iteration of the lineup looking like Rakell will slide to center and the recalled Avery Hayes will see how much more lightning is in his bottle following his two-goal NHL debut from a few weeks ago.
Another new face will be introduced to the lineup in the form of Girard, paired up in practice in place of the player he was traded for. It’ll be interesting to see how the French connection goes there with Letang, the Pens haven’t had very many Quebecois defenders over the years other than No. 58. There was P.O Joseph and Vincent Deshairnais recently [Mike Matheson from an English part of Montreal as somewhat fitting], before that you have to go back to the likes of Simon Depres and then bit players like Alexandre Picard, Alain Nasreddine and Philippe Boucher for a very limited number of French Penguin defenders in the last 20 years, besides Letang himself.
Chinakhov was excused for practice yesterday for the birth of a child. New dad strength, activate!

Balanced scoring to be put to the test

A name you don’t see above in recent leading scorers? Crosby. The Pens’ captain ‘only’ (by his standards) scored one goal and notched five assists in the last nine games before the Olympic break. It’s one thing to have him in the lineup not scoring compared and another to be removed from the team in general though, which the Penguins will have to start getting used to tonight. It is perhaps some comfort, however, to see that very recently this team was functioning extremely well with contributions from players other than the first line.

Even without Crosby, the Pens have the Malkin line that could function and produce as much as a first line if they continue recent scoring trends, some balance behind it with Kindel/Mantha on another line, then Rust/Rakell soldiering on without their usual center followed up with what has become a surprisingly productive fourth line with Dewar/Lizotte leading the way. A team never wants to see their captain and best player become unavailable, the depth and balance of the lineup will be tested in Crosby’s absence.

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