The Pittsburgh Penguins have an opportunity to make it four victories in the last five games tonight. The problem? The Carolina Hurricanes have owned the Penguins lately. In the past three seasons the Penguins have gone 1-7 against them with three coming in overtime losses. It hasn’t been a good matchup. The game against Carolina a month ago the Penguins only had a CF% of 44.76 and an xGF% of 41.35. During this 1-7 stretch the CF% is 42.61 and xGF% 42.34. Not great.
Former Hurricane Alex Nedeljkovic has drawn the start for tonight’s uphill climb.
Mike Sullivan confirms that Alex Nedeljkovic will start. "He's won a couple of games here for us most recently. We think he's played extremely well. So, I think that that weighs into a lot of the decision. But having said that, we have the utmost confidence in Jars, also."
— Pens Inside Scoop (@PensInsideScoop) December 21, 2023
This a good thing. It is much needed. The past few years I think Mike Sullivan has overworked Tristan Jarry. Not because I think he wanted to, but because he had to. Nedeljkovic has played well enough to be given more chances than the normal token start a backup gets. This will allow Jarry to stay fresher. It also allows Nedeljkovic to eat more of the difficult starts which makes Jarry’s workload easier as well.
Bryan Rust is on the mend
Bryan Rust skated this morning for the first time since sustaining his upper-body injury, which has kept him out of the lineup for the last five games.
— Pens Inside Scoop (@PensInsideScoop) December 21, 2023
Good news here. You can’t get back in the lineup if you aren’t skating. It will still take a little bit of time to get him back. This is a good first step.
Jesse Puljujarvi skated on his own this morning.
The Penguins are five points out of a wild card spot at the moment with four teams to climb. They gotta keep stacking points. Tonight would be two points very well earned.
Thanks for reading!