Penguins Game Notes, Scouts & Lines vs. Canadiens, Soirée Jeu!

The Pittsburgh Penguins will host French Language Night as they face the Montreal Canadiens at PPG Paints Arena, Friday. 2009 Stanley Cup champion Max Talbot will serve as the Penguins’ “French Language Night Ambassador” and play a key role in the team’s first bilingual presentation of a game. Talbot will work alongside public address announcer Ryan Mill and make numerous announcements in French during the game.

The Penguins also continue their season-high four-game homestand as they play Montreal, a team they have faired well against recently. The game marks the final time that the two teams will meet in the regular season. Both teams each won their game on the road as the Penguins can take the season series for the fifth time in the last six seasons.

Overall they hold points in eight of its last 10 games against Montreal (7-2-1). Going back further, the Penguins are 9-3-1 in their last 13 games versus them. The Penguins also have scored four or more goals in six of the last ten meeting between the two teams.

Montreal will start Carey Price in net for the fourth straight game. Price’s record sits at 8-7-0 since January 1st despite posting a .935 SV% in that span. Friday will be Price’s third clash with the Penguins this season.

Tristan Jarry will start for the Penguins. Jarry is 18-8-1 with a .929 save percentage and 2.18 goals against average this season.

For the second time in six days, the Penguins played a tightly contests game against Tampa Bay. Unlike their matchup less than a week ago the Penguins did earn a point in a 2-1 loss in OT, Tuesday. The Penguins played a solid game but once again ran into solid goaltending and Tampa Bay proved to be opportunistic especially in OT. After playing the majority of their games on the road recently, the Penguins gained some first-period momentum from the home crowd. Evgeni Malkin pounced on the puck in the circle and wired it into the back of the net to open the scoring with a power-play goal. The Penguins had a chance late in the period on the power play to add on but the opportunity ultimately went by the wayside.

After killing the remainder of their penalty to start the second period, Tampa Bay used a power-play chance of their own to knot the score at one apiece. With Zach Aston-Reese in the box on an interference call, Mikhail Sergachev found the twine. Sergachev let go of a wrist shot from the point that found the top corner and stung the recently stout Penguins penalty kill. Neither team could find the tiebreaker in regulation and the game went to OT to award the second point. The Penguins dominated the first 2:32 of the extra frame but gassed themselves as Tampa Bay found the game-winning goal on the rush. Yanni Gourde received a pass from Brayden Point and roofed a wrist shot to spoil the Penguins’ effort.

Matt Murray started in net for the Penguins and despite being tagged with the loss, performed well. Murray remained the busier of the two goaltenders and stopped 36 of 38 shots. Andrei Vasilevskiy haunted the Penguins with another series of stellar saves to deny them a win and ended up with 35 saves in the win. You can read more about the Penguins and Tampa Bay game in Dan’s Recap and the PHN Extra Report Card.

Montreal was better in the faceoff dot and outhit Boston, but could not overcome an early deficit in a 4-1 loss, Wednesday. Boston received the majority of the heavy lifting from their top line especially David Pastrnak who retook the NHL goal lead by notching his fourth hat trick of the year. Montreal did show a sign of fight by cutting the lead to just one in the period, but it remained the only goal they could muster. Tuukka Rask beat out Carey Price for the win with a 28 save day. Price stopped a hearty 34 out of 37 in the loss.

Notes

Evgeni Malkin found the scoresheet again on Tuesday night with his 18th goal of the season, extending his point streak to five games(3G-5A). With a point tonight, Malkin can equal his season-long point streak of six games, set from Dec. 17-30, 2019 (3G-8A). Malkin had points in nine-straight games that he dressed for from Dec. 6-30 (5G-11A), but it was an unofficial streak due to him missing two games on Dec. 12 and 14. He is currently one of 10 players in the NHL with an active point streak of five or more games.

Brandon Tanev, who currently leads Pittsburgh and ranks third in the NHL with 199 hits, is looking to become just the seventh Penguin team history to record 200 or more hits in a season since the NHL started tracking hits in 2005-06. Tanev is looking to join BrooksOrpik (6 times), Chris Kunitz (3 times), Matt Cooke (1 time), Tanner Glass (1 time), Patric Hornqvist (1 time) and Jack Johnson (1 time).

Scouts

Scouts watching Pens-Canadiens:

Detroit (Pat Verbeek, AGM. Seller)
Toronto (Buyer)
NYR (local scout)
NYI (Buyer…likes Russian wingers who were previously signed by Lou Lamoriello?)

— Dan Kingerski 🇺🇦 (@TheDanKingerski) February 14, 2020

Injuries

Pittsburgh Penguins

Nick Bjugstad (Core Muscle)

Brian Dumoulin (Ankle, IR)

Dominik Kahun (Concussion, Practicing)

John Marino (Cheek, 3 to 6 weeks)

Montreal Canadiens

Shea Weber (Lower Body, IR)

Paul Byron (Knee, IR)

Special Teams

Penguins Lines

Make sure you create your own PHN App. It’s free and easy.