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Pittsburgh Penguins (3-1-0) at Tampa Bay Lightning (3-1-0) 7 PM at Tampa Bay Times Forum
The Pittsburgh Penguins have to quickly move on from their defeat to the Florida Panthers tonight as they face the 2nd place Atlantic Division Tampa Bay Lightning. The Lightning have a matching 3-1-0 record to the Penguins and will be looking to continue their positive start to the season. With a win tonight the Lightning have a chance to tie the Maple Leafs for the division lead.
The Penguins will be looking to get back to the quality of play that netted them their first 3 wins of the season. One good thing for the Penguins is that every team from the Metropolitan Division that competed last night lost.
Last night was a bad combination of below average goaltending and a lack of detail in the neutral zone. The neutral zone breakdowns were what allowed the Panthers to enter the Penguins zone with controlled zone entries. Penguins shutdown defenseman Rob Scuderi had this to say about the Penguins effort (courtesy of Dave Molinari):
I was proud of the fact that we came back, as a group, but, ultimately, we never cleaned up the root of the problem, which was sloppy play in the neutral zone. That led to penalties and [defensive-] zone time and chances."
Tonight the Penguins will be in a world of hurt if they don’t clean up the neutral zone because they are going up against one of the best dynamic duos in all of hockey, Steven Stamkos and Martin St. Louis.
You have the well deserved current captain of the Lightning and the future captain of the Lightning picking up where they left off last season, leading their team in offense. Through the first 4 games of the season Steven Stamkos has 3 goals and 3 assists and Martin St. Louis has 2 goals and 3 assists.
Former Penguin Ryan Malone has seen some time up with the Stamkos/St. Louis duo and when healthy he is absolutely the perfect kind of player to mesh with those two guys. Of course as we all know the healthy part of things for Malone has been a struggle the past few seasons.
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Even with the Florida Panthers loss the Penguins are still one of the better possession teams in the NHL. Currently they rank 5th overall in Fenclose% with 58.5%. When the games have been tight the Penguins have scored 7 goals vs giving up 2 goals, very good ratio. The Lightning currently rank #15 overall with a Fenclose% of 49.6%. They have scored 4 goals while giving up two when the score has been close.
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The Penguins will not have a morning skate today but it is clear that Marc Andre Fleury will be getting the start in goal tonight. Jeff Zatkoff’s performance last night might not be isolated to just the Panthers game. When the Penguins give Zatkoff a game to play it should take the pressure off of Marc Andre Fleury by giving him a break, instead Zatkoff’s subpar performance has put even more pressure on Fleury to perform. Hypothetically speaking if Fleury were to have a below average game against the Lightning tonight, the “Penguins have goaltending issues” narrative is going to go into overdrive, whether it is deserved or not.
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One nice thing about playing against the Lightning is that the Penguins star Evgeni Malkin usually delivers some of his finer moments. Not only do Malkin’s career numbers stand out, but the style points on the goals he scores against the Lightning are usually candidates for goals of the year. In his 24 games against the Lightning Malkin has 16 goals and 12 assists. Not to be totally outdone Sidney Crosby has 9 goals and 16 assists in 23 career games against Tampa.
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The last time the Penguins played the Tampa Bay Lightning without Vincent Lecavalier on the roster Lemieux was entering his first year of retirement (the 1st time) and Jaromir Jagr still had 3 full seasons left with the Penguins.
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Lightning goaltender Ben Bishop is currently suffering from a lower body injury that means that Anders Lindback should receive the start in goal tonight.
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The Panthers were able to rebound from a butt kicking in their first game of a back to back, now the Penguins will have to do the same if they would like to leave Florida with at least one victory.
As always I will provide updates to the blog if necessary.
Thanks for reading!
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