Game Preview: Pittsburgh Penguins at Utah Hockey Club

Who: Pittsburgh Penguins (20-24-8, 48 points, 8th place Metropolitan Division) @ Utah Hockey Club (21-21-7, 49 points, 6th place Central Division)

When: 9:30 p.m. ET

How to Watch: Broadcasting on Sportsnet Pittsburgh locally, national game on TNT and streaming on Max

Pens’ Path Ahead: Tonight is the end of a seven-game road trip (2-4-0 record). The Pens head back to Pittsburgh for a 7pm game against Nashville, then stay at home a few days to meet with New Jersey next Tuesday night. After that is a quick two-game road trip to see the NY Rangers (next Friday, Feb 7th) and a trip to Philadelphia the next night (Sat Feb 8th) and then Pittsburgh gets two weeks off until their next game on Feb. 22nd.

Opponent Track: Utah sits at an even 49 points in 49 games, only five points out of a playoff spot. They’ve been up and down recently, three losses were followed by three wins which were followed up by two more losses in their last two games. Their last action was a 3-1 loss in Ottawa on Sunday.

Season Series: The first ever Pittsburgh/Utah meeting wasn’t pretty one for the Pens, who lost 6-1 back on November 23rd. They’ll be hoping for a better outcome in their first ever visit to the Delta Center tonight.

Hidden Stat: Utah only has an 8-11-4 record in their inaugural season at home (compared to a 13-10-3 record on the road).

Getting to know Utah

Projected lines

From practice yesterday, per Belle Fraser

FORWARDS

Clayton Keller - Logan Cooley - Nick Schmaltz

Alex Kerfoot/ Mattias Maccelli - Barrett Hayton - Josh Doan

Micahel Carcone - Jack McBain - Lawson Crouse

Liam O’Brien - Kevin Stenlund - Nick Bjugstad

DEFENSEMEN

Mikhail Sergachev / John Marino

Olli Maatta / Nick DeSimone

Ian Cole / Michael Kesselring

Goalies: Karel Vejmelka and Connor Ingram

Scratches: Juuso Valimaki Vladislav Kolyachonok,

IR: Dylan Guenther, Robert Bortuzzo, Sean Durzi, Shea Weber

—Sergachev is technically day-to-day and hasn’t played due to an injury since January 16th. Being as he practiced on the top pair yesterday, his chances seem pretty good to return to the lineup tonight.

—Utah carries a decidedly Pittsburgh flavor with names like Bjugstad, Marino, Maatta, Cole and Bortuzzo on the roster, as well as native son Logan Cooley.

—Utah coach Andre Tourigny says there is no set goalie rotation, even though his goalies have been trading off games lately and each have started four times since Ingram returned from injury on Jan. 11th. Vejmelka started last game and lost and no official starter has been named for tonight’s game as of press time.

—Shea Weber: in the Hockey Hall of Fame while also still having an NHL active player’s contract. What a world! (It still lasts through 2025-26, too).

Player stats

—GM Bill Armstrong showed a lot of restraint by not blowing a ton of money on roster upgrades after getting out of the literal desert in Arizona and to a viable NHL owner. Utah brought in Sergachev and Marino in trades that the Coyotes would have never been able to do, but the team is still sitting on up to $30 million in cap space next season (if they opt to push past the limit LTIR Weber’s contract). It’s likely a wise move for a growing club.

—There’s been no sophomore slump for the 20-year old Cooley. As a rookie he put up a respectable 44 points (20G+24A) appearing in all 82 games. This year he’s already improved on the assist numbers in a little over half a season’s worth of work and is not far from besting the goals and points figures either.

Team matchup

—Utah is decent to good at just about everything, but they could use a little more bite and scoring power in their lineup to take the next step up towards being a playoff team. It’s been interesting to see Tourigny ride the escalator up with this team in what has been a gradual but steady build over the last few seasons. Via hockey-reference:

Look at that points percentage inch on up with every passing season. It’s nice to see in the disposable world of NHL coaching a team show some loyalty and actually allow a coach the chance to build a foundation and start to see it through. It’ll be interesting to keep following this team and coach to see where they can take it from here.

And now for the Pens

Projected lines

FORWARDS

Rickard Rakell - Sidney Crosby - Bryan Rust

Michael Bunting - Cody Glass - Anthony Beauvillier

Drew O’Connor - Kevin Hayes - Jesse Puljujarvi

Matt Nieto - Blake Lizotte - Noel Acciari

DEFENSEMEN

Marcus Pettersson / Kris Letang

Matt Grzelcyk / Erik Karlsson

Ryan Graves / P.O. Joseph

Goalies: Alex Nedeljkovic and Joel Blomqvist

Potential Scratches: Philip Tomasino, Boko Imama, Ryan Shea

IR: Evgeni Malkin (week-to-week knee injury)

—Three straight losses where the team has only mustered one goal in each game made for some lineup changes in practice yesterday. The bottom-six was a mix and rotation of players but it looks like Tomasino might be out. That caused a minor stir on twitter but at this point the team might as well shake things out and see what they can find. Luckily it appears Lizotte is trending back towards returning after being unable to play due to illness over the last three games.

—Sidney Crosby has scored three goals in the last four games, so that’s good. But Crosby is the only Penguin player who has managed to score a goal in each of the last two games (vs. SJ and SEA) which is decidedly less good for the whole team to dry up for games on end.

—Josh Yohe at The Athletic had an interesting take about how the loss last week in Anaheim might have taken all the rest of the wind out of the Penguin player’s sails. “Effectively ended the season” as he put it. I think he’s onto something there, the cynic could read the standings and rightfully point out the team wasn’t headed anywhere anyways, but when player belief dissipates, it’s pretty obvious. And the last two games are certainly indicators that this incarnation of the team has reached their limit (write the epitaph now — “2024-25 Penguins: hung in there to the tune of 6th place for almost 50 games”).

—So we’ll see if the team has any energy or ability to end their trip on a high-note tonight. The best they can do is come back 3-4-0 with a win, and those losses in Anaheim, Seattle and San Jose tell the story plain as day. A loss tonight means 2-4-1 or 2-5-0 and the team is just counting down days until most of them take a tropical vacation in February and then likely carved up for parts (to the basis any contender wants any of the pieces) and limps down the stretch for another year.