The Pittsburgh Penguins completed their season sweep of the Dallas Stars with a 3-0 victory. The Stars have been struggling to score goals this year and in the two games combined the Penguins only gave up two goals against. Matt Murray made 25 saves for his 11th career shutout.
Pittsburgh saw the return of two injured forwards. Bryan Rust and Nick Bjugstad returned to the lineup. The team is slowly returning to what it was supposed to look like on paper. It might take a few games for them to get acclimated back to speed. Even though Bryan Rust scored the second goal of the game on a wraparound he was clobbered when he was on the ice. His name described his play. He and Bjugstad were the two worst forwards on this evening conceding quite a number of shot attempts.
Something positive from the information above is the first time pairing of Jusso Riikola and John Marino. They thrived together and their combined cap hit is only 1.775M. There is close to a 0% chance Riikola-Marino would be worse than Johnson-Gudbranson and showcases how foolhardy it was to light 7.25M in cap space on fire. I don’t expect them to be in the upper right side of the chart every game. I do think there’s a chance they are serviceable and cost friendly.
On the flip side you have Kris Letang struggling. Mike Sullivan elected to put Jack Johnson with him. In the last three games Kris Letang is CF 12 CA 24 (33%) with Johnson. We all know Johnson is going to drag even the best of players down, but I don’t disagree with Sullivan this time assuming Brian Dumoulin isn’t week to week. Leaving Pettersson-Schultz alone and getting a look at Riikola-Marino is useful within the scope of the entire season. The Penguins are banking enough points to have their eye on the long term. They did a great job getting results in this tough stretch. Things will lighten up a little bit in the near future with Boston being the only heavy hitter in the upcoming schedule.
Dominik Kahun finally got rewarded with his first goal as a Penguin. Considering all the bounces that haven’t gone his way it may have been appropriate that the puck magically came back to him while he was standing at the post with nobody on him. Kahun had a woefully slow start , but he has been gaining some momentum.
I want to give some props to Michael Gruber. He is the person responsible for the music for the arena. He came up with a gem last night. One might say a righteous gem.
Sidney Crosby had quite a scare at the end of the second period. He was hit in what appeared to be the side of the head/cheek area by a Kris Letang shot. He was not at the bench to start the third period, but did eventually return to the game. I know Sidney Crosby wears the ear guards in his helmet and it potentially saved him from a more serious fate in this situation.
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