Game Preview: Pittsburgh Penguins @ Vegas Golden Knights 3/7/2025

Who: Pittsburgh Penguins (24-30-10, 58 points, 8th place Metropolitan Division) @ Vegas Golden Knights (37-18-6, 80 points, 1st place Pacific Division)

When: 10:00 p.m. ET

How to Watch: Scripps and SportsNet Pittsburgh in the local markets, streaming on ESPN+

Pens’ Path Ahead: The Penguins have one more stop on the road trip on Sunday afternoon (3:30 start) when they go to visit Marc-Andre Fleury as an opponent for the final time. That starts a routine of playing every other day for a while with five home games starting on Tuesday (Vegas), Thursday (St. Louis) and next Saturday Mar 15th (New Jersey) as upcoming opponents.

Opponent Track: The Knights won 5-2 at home on Wednesday against Toronto in their last game. Overall Vegas is 4-1-0 since returning from the 4 Nations break as they gear up for the playoffs.

Season Series: This is the first PIT/VGK game of the season and we won’t have to wait long for the rematch. The Golden Knights come to Pittsburgh in four days on Tuesday March 11th.

Hidden Stat: Pittsburgh is 2-4-0 all-time playing in Las Vegas, losing their last two visits. In their last five games at T-Mobile Arena, the Pens have given up 21 total goals (4.20 per game).

Hidden Stat 2.0 plus trivia: Sidney Crosby has 10 points in 11 career games against Vegas, which marks one of five NHL franchises where Crosby has a total of under a point per game. Can you name the other four? (Answer below)

Getting to know the Knights

Projected lines

FORWARDS

Tanner Pearson - Jack Eichel - Mark Stone

Brandon Saad - Tomas Hertl - Pavel Dorofeyev

Ivan Barbashev - Brett Howden - Keegan Kolesar

Victor Olofsson - Nicolas Roy - Raphael Lavoie

DEFENSEMEN

Nicolas Hague / Alex Pietrangelo

Noah Hanifin / Zach Whitecloud

Brayden McNabb / Kaeden Korczak

Goalies: Adin Hill and Ilya Samsonov

Scratches: Ben Hutton, Shea Theodore (injured), Reilly Smith?

IR: William Karlsson, Cole Schwindt

—Saad, a free “trade deadline” add by way of agreeing to terminate his contract with St. Louis, has four points in his first nine games with Vegas.

—We’ll see if Smith re-joins Vegas in time from New York to make today’s game following his trade yesterday. Pretty interesting trade path there, Vegas got a third round pick (2024) from Pittsburgh for Smith in 2023 when they had to deal him to solve a salary cap crunch. They pick Smith back up 1.75 seasons later for a third round pick (2025) and former 2020 first round pick Brendon Brisson (who hasn’t stuck as an NHL regular). Smith is set to be a free agent this summer.

Player stats

(via hockeydb)

—Vegas sits 5th in the NHL with 3.33 goals/game, they’ve gotten there with spread and balance more than individual, overwhelming talent. Eichel and Stone are world class players but haven’t put up monstrous individual seasons. Vegas can make up from that with scoring from any given line on any given night. The Knights have nine players in double-digits for goals (by comparison, the Pens have six — one of whom they’ve traded (Bunting, although his replacement in Tommy Novak fits) and one of whom they might trade today in Beauvillier).

—Hill’s numbers aren’t outstanding either, but they’re solid enough, especially relative to his backup of Samsonov.

And now for the Pens

Projected lines

FORWARDS

Rickard Rakell - Sidney Crosby - Bryan Rust

Anthony Beauvillier - Evgeni Malkin - Philip Tomasino

Danton Heinen - Kevin Hayes - Emil Bemstrom

Blake Lizotte - Cody Glass - Noel Acciari

DEFENSEMEN

Matt Grzelcyk / Erik Karlsson

Ryan Shea / Kris Letang

Vladislav Kolyachonok / Ryan Graves

Goalies: Alex Nedeljkovic and Tristan Jarry

Potential Scratches: Boko Imama, Luke Schenn?, Tommy Novak?

Injured Reserve: P.O. Joseph (upper-body injury)

—The Pens lines are very loose right now as well. Trades could take some out of town. Their newest contingent of Nashville players did not arrive with the team in time for practice yesterday but it’s possible one or both could be jumping right into the lineup tonight due to trade or a potential assignment of Bemstrom to the AHL.

—It’ll be interesting to see when the Pens go back to playing Jarry. They don’t have any more games on back-to-back days again this season, but the travel schedule is fairly daunting in the near future with tonight’s Western game followed by a Sunday afternoon road game in Minnesota and then being back at home in Pittsburgh on Tuesday night. Nedeljkovic got 13 straight starts at the end of last season, and as of now figures to get a ton of starts down the stretch but it might be a good move to give him a game off here and there.

Milestones and achievements

• Evgeni Malkin: 1,200 career NHL games (1,199 currently)
• Mike Sullivan: 400 wins with Pittsburgh (399)
• Bryan Rust: ninth place in Pens history with 620 games (would tie Ron Stackhouse, 621 by playing tonight)
• Rickard Rakell: 29 goals this season (looking to break 30-goal plateau for third time in career)
• Sidney Crosby: 19 goals this season (looking to hit the 20+ goal mark for the 17th time in career)
• Crosby: 47 assists this season (looking to hit 50+ assists for 11th time in his career)

Trivia answer: The other teams Crosby doesn’t have a point/game against are: Chicago (14 points in 19 games), Dallas (22 points in 24 games), San Jose (23 points in 24 games) and Seattle (seven points in eight games). Here’s hoping for two points (or more) for Sid to take Vegas off the list.