Opening night is here and the Penguins are busy making roster moves to maximize their LTIR space and have made a new signing.
Additional updates: Evgeni Malkin has been placed on long-term injured reserve. Sidney Crosby’s status has been changed to injured non-roster. Zach Aston-Reese has been added to the NHL’s COVID protocol list.
— Pittsburgh Penguins (@penguins) October 12, 2021
Anthony Angello and Drew O’Connor are back up after a brief cap related demotion.
Here are the lines which are noticeably missing Sidney Crosby, Evgeni Malkin, and Jake Guentzel
Heinen-Carter-Rust Zucker-Rodrigues-Kapanen McGinn-Blueger-Simon O’Connor-Boyle-Lafferty
Not ideal to say the least. To the point where I don’t think I would take a lot away from tonight’s result. This isn’t a reflection of the true roster.
On defense you have the following
Dumoulin-Letang Matheson-Marino Pettersson-Ruhwedel
The Matheson-Marino pairing sticks out because it wasn’t nearly as good as the Pettersson-Marino pairing.
Personally, I would go with Pettersson-Marino, but perhaps this is the Penguins tipping their hand that they don’t plan on having Pettersson the entire season and want Marino to get used to playing with Matheson, who’s contract is probably immovable.
UPDATE 12:39 PM
Mike Matheson will NOT be playing tonight. He is day to day
Matheson is out tonight. Day to day.
— Josh Yohe (@JoshYohe_PGH) October 12, 2021
Special teams:
First power play: Letang, Rust, Zucker, Kapanen, Carter
— Taylor Haase (@TaylorHaasePGH) October 12, 2021
Second power play: Marino, Pettersson, Heinen, Rodrigues, Simon
Here are Tampa Bay’s likely line combinations Ondrej Palat - Brayden Point - Nikita Kucherov Alex Killorn - Anthony Cirelli - Steven Stamkos Corey Perry - Ross Colton - Mathieu Joseph Patrick Maroon - Pierre-Edouard Bellemare - Taylor Raddysh
Victor Hedman - Jan Rutta Ryan McDonagh - Erik Cernak Mikhail Sergachev - Zach Bogosian **** Sidney Crosby was scheduled for an interview at halftime last night during Monday Night Football until the Jon Gruden news broke. Even if it didn’t go down at halftime it already shows that ESPN will be promoting the stars of the league way better than NBC ever did. One thing ESPN does better than anything else is self-promotion of the properties they own which is why you didn’t see hockey on the network for the last 15 or so years. Hockey is back on ESPN and over time we will see more crossover promotions. In the interview Crosby talked about being ready to play in a “week or two… and he also “hopes to play at least four more seasons… which coincidentally brings him to the end of his current contract.
Thanks for reading!