The Need to Knows
- The Time: 10 am PT / 1 pm ET*
- The Place: PPG Paints Arena, Pittsburgh, PA
- Where to Watch:
- Where to Listen: KJR 93.3 FM
- An Opposing Viewpoint: Tux Pucks
*Originally, this game was scheduled for 3:00 PT / 6:00 ET. However, bad weather in the Buffalo, NY area was responsible for this schedule change. Yes, you read that city right. The Bills vs Steelers NFL playoff game in Orchard Park, NY was originally set to take place on Sunday, January 14, but thanks to a weather advisory, it was rescheduled to Monday at 1:30 PT / 4:30 ET. The Penguins didn’t want their fans to have to decide between watching playoff football or hockey, so they rescheduled their game. Now everyone on the west coast needs to be up bright and early on their MLK Day to watch the Kraken. Everyone say thank you to Buffalo winters!
Know Your Enemy
For the Pittsburgh Penguins, this past offseason was about proving to themselves that the ending to last season was an anomaly and not the new norm. For the first time since the ’05-’06 season (also known as Sidney Crosby’s rookie year), the Penguins missed the playoffs. Even as their core of Crosby, Evgeni Malkin, and Kris Letang get older, they are still generational talents. Any team in the NHL would be lucky to have had one of these players locked to their roster for over 15 years—the Penguins are blessed to have all three. The internal message is that the Penguins owe it to these three to continue to remain competitive for as long as possible. The rebuild can wait for when they retire.
The Penguins let go of General Manager Ron Hextall and brought in Kyle Dubas to take the reigns. They went after their big fish in 2023 Norris Trophy winner Erik Karlsson. The signs were all there that this was a team ready to throw all their chips in to get back into “win now” mode.
Over the first have of this season, Penguins haven’t just been missing the mark of their stated goal, but they have had moments of crashing and burning. The Penguins currently sit outside of a playoff spot with 46 standings points. It’s not too much of a gap to catch up (the second wild card spot is held by the New York Islanders with 48 points), but there are three other Eastern Conference teams all hovering around the same numbers. It’s a tight race, and the Penguins can’t afford to make mistakes to stay afloat in it.
The Penguins currently sit at 26th in power play percentage with 13.9%, but what those numbers don’t tell is the massive power play drought the team went through earlier this season. The Penguins had gone 0-for-37 over the course of a month, finally breaking this drought with a Jake Guentzel goal against Arizona on December 12. It was a franchise record power play drought, and one that was baffling to outsiders considering the power play has players such as Crosby, Malkin, and Letang leading the charge. Historically, this has been a formidable power play group. For Penguins fans, this drought began to raise the question of whether head coach Mike Sullivan should be in the hot seat for his inability to innovate. People more astute than myself at analyzing systems, such as Jesse Marshall, have pointed out that while the Penguins’ power play strategies were devastating to teams when the Penguins were winning their 2016 and 2017 Stanley Cups, the league has grown and evolved. What once worked no longer does.
Of the Penguins to watch out for, Crosby is the biggest factor on this team. He may be 36 years old, but he is once again on pace to put up a rate of over a point-per-game, currently sitting with 44 points in 41 games. Rounding out the top 5 point-getters are Guentzel, Malkin, Karlsson, and Letang. None of these names are surprising at the top for Pittsburgh. After these five, it begins to drop off a bit in scoring, but don’t count anyone out on this squad. It feels like there’s always a random Penguins player that chooses to have a game at any given moment.
Game Preview
The Kraken continue their 6-game road trip and look to keep their franchise record 9-game win streak alive. It’s almost as if that 8-game losing streak the Kraken were on earlier this season never happened! The team’s been rolling along, and the vibes are high.
Any time the Kraken play the Penguins, it’s a revenge game for a large chunk of the team. Jared McCann, Brandon Tanev, Jamie Oleksiak, and now Brian Dumoulin are all former Penguins players. (Maybe this is just what happens when your GM won 2 Stanley Cups with the Penguins.) As for Dumoulin, this is his first game back in Pittsburgh since he signed with the Kraken in free agency this past summer. The Penguins clearly still think highly of him, despite his performance having dipped a bit during his last couple of seasons with the team. Also, the Penguins traditionally reserve their video tributes for players that have won the Stanley Cup with them, so look for Pittsburgh to honor Dumoulin during the game.
Going into this matchup, the biggest factor is that the statuses for André Burakovsky and Matty Beniers are still unknown. Allyson did a good job of breaking down the implications for both of them being pulled out early last game against the Columbus Blue Jackets, but it likely goes without saying that it would be best if both of them were ready to go at puck drop. With the game being as early as it is, though, and travel factoring into the ability for the Kraken to practice, it’s likely that one or both of them will sit out tomorrow just due to a lack of being able to test them out on the ice.
Beyond that, it’s up to the Kraken to capitalize against a team that is performing less than expected so far this season. The Penguins aren’t exactly an easy team to win against, but they aren’t the challenge across the NHL as they used to be. But the Kraken seem to know what it takes lately to win against teams, and they’re no stranger to win streaks on the road. Nothing’s a given, but there’s a lot of good luck pointing towards the Kraken in this one.
Leave a tip to support our writers and staff!