Game Preview: Pittsburgh Penguins @ Detroit Red Wings 10/10/2024

The Pens don’t waste any time getting to the second game of the season

Who: Pittsburgh Penguins (0-1-0, 0 points) @ Detroit Red Wings (0-0-0, 0 points)

When: 8:00 p.m. ET (schedule change! Originally a 7:00 start, game time has been bumped back an hour minutes to help with traffic due to Detroit hosting something called “postseason baseball game” today. Does not compute to the Pittsburgh mind)

How to Watch: Locally televised on Sportsnet Pittsburgh and Bally Sports Detroit, streaming on ESPN+

Pens’ Path Ahead: The Pens stay on the road and make the short trip from Detroit over to Toronto for a Hockey Night in Canada spotlight on Saturday night. They still north of the border to play in Montreal on Monday and then head back to Pittsburgh to host the Sabres next Wednesday.

Opponent Track: The Red Wings got to chill at home last night while the Pens played the Rangers. This is Detroit’s season opener, they’ll stay at home for their next game on Saturday when Nashville comes to visit.

Season Series: Detroit pays their only visit of the season to Pittsburgh in a few weeks on November 13th. Then the Pens head back to the Motor City for a December 31st game (and an awful 8:00pm start time!) that will put them on the ice almost until the ball drops on the new year. That completes the three-game season series for the two possible playoff contenders, who won’t play directly in the 2025 portion of the 2024-25 season.

Getting to know the Red Wings

Projected lines

FORWARDS

Alex DeBrincat - Dylan Larkin - Lucas Raymond

Vladimir Tarasenko - JT Compher - Patrick Kane

Michael Rasmussen - Andrew Copp - Christian Fischer

Tyler Motte - Joe Veleno - Jonatan Berggren

DEFENSEMEN

Ben Chiarot / Moritz Seider

Simon Edvinsson / Jeff Petry

Olli Maatta / Erik Gustafsson

Goalies: Ville Husso, Cam Talbot and Alex Lyon

Possible scratches: Albert Johansson

IR: none

—Is this the team to break Detroit’s franchise-high streak of eight straight seasons of not reaching the playoffs? They fell just short in 2023-24 (losing a tiebreaker to Washington for the final spot) and are largely bringing back the same group. There have been marginal changes; one puck moving defender (Gustafsson) is new to replace a departed one (Shayne Gotisbehere) and one veteran offensive winger (Tarasenko) is new to replace a counterpart (David Perron) and that’s about it for the major changes for the Red Wings this year (they also bid farewell to Daniel Sprong, as so many NHL teams have and Jake Walman).

—The Red Wings are among the growing number of NHL teams that is keeping three goalies, in fear of waivers taking a netminder away in the 32-team league where goaltending can get thin. They had the arrangement all last season and it doesn’t look like it’s going to change. Finding sustained good play between the three has been a difficult task.

Player stats (from 2023-24)

(via hockeydb)

—Dylan Larkin isn’t an alpha star in the NHL that burns as brightly as the MVP echelon guys (McDavid, MacKinnon, Kucherov, etc) but Larkin has been right at a point-per-game over each of the last three seasons. The Red Wings might well have qualified for the playoffs had Larkin not got hurt in the second half of last season.

—Pittsburgh will have to watch out for that first line, last season Larkin (1G+5A in only two games), Raymond (5G+1A in three games) and DeBrincat (2G+4A in three) were eating them up. Their pace and skill presented oodles of problems, and coming off last night’s game for the Pens, limiting that is going to be a top priority tonight.

And now for the Pens

Projected lines

FORWARDS

Anthony Beauvillier - Sidney Crosby - Rickard Rakell

Michael Bunting - Evgeni Malkin - Drew O’Connor

Rutger McGroarty - Lars Eller - Jesse Puljujarvi

Kevin Hayes - Cody Glass - Noel Acciari

DEFENSEMEN

Marcus Pettersson / Erik Karlsson

Matt Grzelcyk / Kris Letang

Ryan Graves / Jack St. Ivany

Goalies: Joel Blomqvist or Tristan Jarry (played last night)

Potential Scratches: Ryan Shea, Valtteri Puustinen

IR: Matt Nieto (knee surgery), Bryan Rust, Alex Nedeljkovic, Blake Lizotte, Vasily Ponomarev

—The Pens play a lot in the first few weeks of the season, but this is the only back-to-back game until Oct 25-26. The team hasn’t formally said as of yet which goalie is playing tonight but indications might point the first NHL game for Joel Blomqvist. They did elect to leave Tristan Jarry in to weather the entire storm last night against New York, presumably to spare Blomqvist from getting baptized to the NHL like that but it also leaves him as the goalie primed to play for this game.

—Kyle Dubas said in his preseason talk the team needed to take extra care to slow play Rust’s return, since his competitive inclination would result in rushing back and potentially re-aggravating his injury. After a lifeless 6-0 loss, the Pens need Rust back ASAP. Can’t rush the healing process, of course, with a long season ahead — but they need him back and all hands on deck literally yesterday. It’ll be interesting to see when Rust is back in the lineup.

Milestone watch

• Evgeni Malkin remains two goals away from 500 in his career
• Malkin is also two assists away from 800
• And add that up to see Malkin is four points away from 1,300
• Sidney Crosby is also four points away from a round number (1,600 career points in his case)