Canadiens (1-3-1, 1-1 road) at Penguins (4-2-2, 1-1-1 home), CONSOL Energy Center, 7:00 pm Est.
Brooks Orpik set to make season debut Thursday night against Canadiens
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Injury News From Both Sides Of The Red Line
Wednesday was an off-day, but there’s plenty of news to go around Thursday.
Brooks Orpik is back! He’ll be making his season debut Thursday night against the Canadiens. Let’s hope he’s 100 percent healthy and not rushing back because of the Kris Letang suspension and Brian Strait injury.
Speaking of Strait, he’s suffering from a hyper-extended elbow. Let’s hope Orpik’s season debut goes better than Strait’s. The team released no timeframe as to how long Strait will be out.
James Neal missed the game-day skate. Coach Dan Bylsma, who expects Neal to play, said he was just getting a maintenance day off. Where have we heard that before?
Evgeni Malkin is once again out Montreal with his sore knee.
Tyler Kennedy officially is out with a concussion. Let’s hope he doesn’t miss much time and gets better quickly. As you can see, spending $2 million on a player is a risk that goes both ways.
Dustin Jeffrey is getting close to returning from knee surgery. GM Ray Shero called him an NHL player when signing him over the summer. The Pens could really use a boost, but it’s hard seeing a young, inexperienced player coming back and contributing right away. It might take him several weeks or a month to find his bearings.
The good news is that the Penguins have weathered the early-season schedule barrage with a 4-2-2 record. Pittsburgh plays just six times in the next 21 days, giving Sidney Crosby plenty of practice time to get banged around.
On the other side of the ledger, Penguins killer Michael Cammalleri is expected to play Thursday after missing time with a nasty leg cut.
Defenseman Andrei Markov is expected to be re-evaluated Monday for his bad knee and is out.
Fellow blueliner Chris Campoli is out with a torn hamstring.
Defenseman Jaroslav Spacek is also out Thursday with an upper-body injury.
As a result, the Canadiens have been using Yannick Weber, usually a fourth-line forward, as a defenseman.
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What to Watch For
Max Pacioretty has five points (2, 3) in five games for the Canadiens. PK Subban has one assist and a minus-5 rating through five games – hopefully he’ll watch his skate blade when he’s around Jordan Staal.
Free agent signing Erik Cole has been an early-season bust with an assist in five games, though he does lead the team with 15 hits. Watch for Cole-Orpik skirmishing as they have a history together.
Cammalleri has four goals and eight points in 10 games against Pittsburgh – not including the playoffs.
Goalie Carey Price has gotten off to a rough start but has played some of his best hockey against Pittsburgh. It will be interesting to see whether Price of Marc-Andre Fleury gets to “self-express” himself after Thursday’s game. You’ll remember that Price got a bit over exuberant with a post-game celebration after one win and the Flower basically mocked him when the Pens won the next time around.
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Head to Head
A quick look at the numbers behind the Penguins and Canadiens can be found
here.
What Stands Out ...
The Pens are averaging 2.75 goals per game while allowing 2.38. Montreal has scored 2.40 goals and surrendered 3.0 on average.
Although the Canadiens are just 1-3-1, their 1.25 "5-on-5 for/against goals" percentage is 12th best. In other words, they’re still playing pretty well at even strength. The Penguins, meanwhile, hold a 0.65 "5-on-5 for/against goals" percentage, 28th in the NHL. So far special teams have carried the Pens.
Pittsburgh’s power-play is still clicking at 21.4 percent, though that number has predictably been coming down from the 30 percent area since the beginning of the year. Montreal is averaging only 9.5 percent.
The Pens once again lead the league with a 96.4 penalty kill percentage. PK killer Craig Adams took a puck off his face during practice Thursday but returned – it was only a slapper from Paul Martin. The Canadiens are killing at a rate of 79.3 percent, so there will be opportunity for Pittsburgh on the special teams Thursday night.
The Pens are taking two shots more than they’re allowing thus far (31.8 to 29), which is important for a team that prides itself on getting to its game by pressuring its opponents’ zone. The Habs are taking a whopping 10 more shots per game than allowed (34.8 to 24.6), but the end result hasn’t been there.
Pittsburgh is ninth in the faceoff circle with a 51.9 percent win rate, compared with 49.2 percent a year ago (21st). Montreal wins just 49.1 of its draws (20th) after winning 49.0 percent (22nd) last year.
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2010-11 Pens-Habs Series Recap
Oct. 9 Montreal wins 3-2 at CONSOL
Marc-Andre Fleury allowed two late third-period goals, turning a cruise control victory into a surprising defeat. The game-losing goal to Scott Gomez at the 18:12 mark was soft and could’ve help spiral the Flower’s early-season woes to another level.
Jan. 6 Montreal wins 2-1 in OT at home
Benoit Pouliot scores in the fifth round of the shootout to give the Canadiens a victory. Brent Johnson started and stopped 22 of 23 shots.
Jan. 12 5-2 Pens win in Montreal
This is the game Matt Cooke and Sidney Crosby both flew to Montreal and then returned to Pittsburgh before the game even started. Cooke’s wife had taken ill and Sid was suffering from his concussions. Alex Gologoski had a goal and two assists, Kris Letang set up three scores. Jordan Staal collected three points (1, 2) and Chris Kunitz finished with two (1, 1). Fleury stopped 20 of 22 shots.
March 12 3-0 Canadiens’ win at CONSOL
Carey Price notched a 26-save shutout, the Flower gave up three goals on 12 shots and was replaced by Brent Johnson.
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Probable Starting Goalies
Carey Price has played inconsistently for Montreal. He’s gotten off to a rocky start, allowing five goals and four goals in two of his last three games. The Flower will return to the nets Thursday after sitting out the second of back-to-back games Tuesday night. As the stats show, though, Price clearly got the better of Fleury last year.
PENGUINS
Marc-Andre Fleury
2011-12
3-2-0, 2.58 GAA, .914 save percentage
2010-11 vs. Montreal
1-2-0, 3.30 GAA, .869 save percentage
CANADIENS
Carey Price
2011-12
1-3-1, 2.78 GAA, .885 save percentage
2010-11 vs. Pittsburgh
3-1-0, 1.96 GAA, .939 save percentage, one shutout
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Line Combos
PENGUINS
Kunitz-Staal-Dupuis
Cooke-Vitale-Asham
Sullivan-Crosby-Park
MacIntyre-Letestu-Adams
(Jeffrey)
We'll have to see who Orpik skates with since Letang is out Thursday.
Thanks to the
Penguins' Web site for details.
CANADIENS
Travis Moen - Scott Gomez - Brian Gionta
Lars Eller - Tomas Plekanec - Erik Cole
Max Pacioretty - David Desharnais - Andrei Kostitsyn
Mathieu Darche - Andreas Engvist - Aaron Palushaj
Josh Gorges - P.K. Subban
Hal Gill - Raphael Diaz
Alexei Emelin - Yannick Weber
Last game per the
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.
Have a great Thursday & Let's Go Pens!
JT
Pittsburgh Penguins Blogger • 
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