Game Preview: Montreal Canadiens @ Pittsburgh Penguins 2/22/2024 - Lines, how to watch

It’s a hockey night in Pittsburgh!

Who: Montreal Canadiens (22-26-8, 52 points, 7th place Atlantic Division) @ Pittsburgh Penguins (24-21-8, 56 points, 7th place Metropolitan Division)

When: 7:00 p.m. ET

How to Watch: Sportsnet Pittsburgh, streaming on ESPN+

Pens’ Path Ahead: The Pens have been spoiled for being at home and getting lots of rest for much of February, and it’s about to come to an end. There’s one more home game after this on Sunday afternoon (3:30 puck drop) against the Flyers, then Pittsburgh takes to the road, and it’s quite the road trip. Mighty Vancouver awaits on Tuesday, then Seattle a week from today on next Thursday and the always tough Alberta b-2-b of Calgary and Edmonton next Saturday and Sunday, respectively.

Opponent Track: Montreal had to play at home last night against Buffalo, dropping a 3-2 decision before traveling down to Pittsburgh today. The Canadiens are 2-5-0 coming out of the All-Star break. They’re all over the map, last week they shutout Anaheim to win 5-0 but that game was sandwiched around 7-2 and 7-4 losses.

Season Series: The last game on January 27th was exciting; Jake Guentzel scored in the third period as Montreal blew a lead, then Marcus Pettersson scored in OT to give the Pens a victory heading into the break. The first meeting on December 13th was fairly similar; Pittsburgh fell behind early in the game 3-1 before forcing overtime. In that contest, a shootout was required that the Penguins won. So Pittsburgh carries a 2-0-0 record in on the year against MTL, but they have two points with a 0-0-2 record to show for themselves so far.

Hidden Stat: Only three teams, and they’re the worst teams in the league this year (CHI, SJ, CBJ) have fewer regulation wins than Montreal’s 13. The Pens are desperate for points in the standings and they’re facing a team that has given the opposition at least a point in nearly 77% of their games this season and given the opponent two points in 60% of the contests. Pittsburgh will be as down bad as Montreal if they can’t find a way to take something out of this one.

Getting to know the Canadiens

Projected lines

FORWARDS

Cole Caufield - Nick Suzuki - Juraj Slafkovský

Joshua Roy - Alex Newhook - Josh Anderson

Joel Armia - Jake Evans - Brendan Gallagher

Jesse Ylonen - Brandon Gignac - Tanner Pearson

DEFENSEMEN

Mike Matheson / David Savard

Jayden Struble / Kaiden Guhle

Arber Xhekaj / Jordan Harris

Goalies: Jake Allen or Cayden Primeau (Samuel Montembault started last night vs BUF)

Possible scratches: Michael Pezzetta, Jonathan Kovacevic

IR: Christian Dvorak, Kirby Dach, Rafael Harvey-Pinard, Chris Wideman, Carey Price

—Decent enough first line but then it gets really thin, really fast for Montreal.

—Since Montreal’s shocking and goaltender-aided run to the Stanley Cup Final in 2020, they’ve finished in last place in their division the past two years and are tracking to be near the very bottom of the league again this year. The Canadiens serve as an interesting case study for the lengthiness of a total tear down and rebuild — for six years they’ve already had more draft picks than the typical allotment and already have multiple picks in Rounds 1-3 for 2024 and 2025 to continue to build through the draft. With all that quantity and quality, The Athletic gave them the 10th best prospect pool, but they still lack NHL oomph right now. And it could be years further until the Canadiens are competitive again. Similar to as seen with division-mates of Buffalo, Ottawa and Detroit for the better of the last decade, launching a rebuild can be difficult and far from a guarantee.

Player stats

(via hockeydb)

—Josh Anderson has been down bad lately, with only one goal in 2024. Eroding skills and confidence have taken a big chunk out of his game quickly in recent weeks and months.

—Matheson has had a fun turn to his career in his home province of Quebec since leaving the Penguins via a trade. His points and minutes are way up with a huge role to be “the guy” these days for MTL on the back end. His defensive miscues and adventures also seem to be increased with the bigger role. Matheson still has two more seasons after this one on his long-term contract, and it’s wild to think how he’s gone from pariah in Florida to uneven and finding his way in Pittsburgh to now thriving in Montreal over the course of this deal — and it’s not even close to finished yet.

Slafkovsky starting to blossom

Former No. 1 overall pick Juraj Slafkovsky has been starting to figure out the NHL, and unsurprisingly he’s taken big strides playing with an excellent centerman in Nick Suzuki.

Slafkovsky has been under the microscope as a big body player but perhaps with questions about his skill would translate to the NHL. He certainly isn’t going to be a MacKinnon/McDavid/Matthews type of a first overall pick to change a franchise on his own, but Slafkovsky has been really impressive lately.

And now for the Penguins

Projected lines

FORWARDS

Rickard Rakell - Sidney Crosby - Bryan Rust

Drew O’Connor - Evgeni Malkin - Matthew Phillips

Reilly Smith - Lars Eller - Valtteri Puustinen

Jansen Harkins - Noel Acciari - Jeff Carter

DEFENSEMEN

P.O. Joseph / Kris Letang

Marcus Pettersson / Erik Karlsson

Ryan Graves / Chad Ruhwedel

Goalies: Tristan Jarry, Alex Nedeljkovic

Potential Scratch: Magnus Hellberg, Jesse Puljujarvi, John Ludvig, Colin White (waivers)

IR: Matt Nieto (out from knee surgery until March), Jake Guentzel,

—Colin White hit the waiver wire yesterday, in concert with Noel Acciari participating in an optional practice and being all but officially cleared to return to the lineup following a concussion suffered on Feb. 6th. Pittsburgh is at the 23-player limit on the roster right now, so they will need to re-assign White to the AHL this afternoon before they can activate Acciari from the IR.

—Oddly enough, goalie Hellberg is still on the NHL roster, as he quietly has been for the past few days. Sullivan said one of the goalies wasn’t feeling well over the weekend, but neither Jarry nor Nedeljkovic has missed even a practice and both have played since Hellberg was recalled. Hellberg’s presence could be innocuous and not foretelling of a coming roster move, but carrying a third goalie does stand out.

The man they call the Dragon

What do Erik Karlsson and Kris Letang have in common? Well, besides being some of the most prolific and accomplished defensemen of this generation, both have been buoyed by having Marcus Pettersson as a partner this season.

From Pens PR:

Defenseman Marcus Pettersson found the back of the net on Tuesday against New York, notching his third goal of the season. The goal established a new career high for Pettersson, and his 22 points (3G-19A) are just three shy of his career best set in 2018-19 (25).

Petttersson ranks first on Pittsburgh in plus/minus (+20), second in blocked shots (100), third in time-on-ice per game (22:25) and fourth in hits (64). Pettersson’s defensive partners have thrived this season while paired with him:

Erik Karlsson with and without Pettersson:

Situation: GP G A PTS +/-

Karlsson w/Pettersson 30 6 16 22 +11
Karlsson w/o Pettersson 23 1 16 17 -3

Kris Letang with and without Pettersson:

Situation: GP G A PTS +/-

Letang w/Pettersson 23 2 15 17 +12
Letang w/o Pettersson 30 2 13 15 +2

It took a while for the Penguins to fully wrap their arms around using Pettersson in a big role, but he’s slowly grown into an indispensable player in Pittsburgh. Goalies aside, where is Pettersson for value on the ice to the team? Crosby is ahead of him, and probably Guentzel, Karlsson and Letang too and maybe Rust. But other than that, for this season perhaps no one else on the team is playing better in their role than the lanky Swedish defender that plays a perfect supporting game and is now starting to chip in more offensively than ever.