The Pittsburgh Penguins and Columbus Blue Jackets will hit the ice tonight in the preseason opener for both clubs.
What should we be watching for? Nothing. We can't see anything because it isn't on TV (not even on services such as hockeystreams).
Here are the lineups for the game that you can't see:
Clearly the Penguins lineup is missing a ton of talent and most of the players will not be part of the big club's plans this season. However, there are some players who will be impact players on the team so let's focus on them.
Last season Mike Johnston talked about having forwards play in pairs with the third player on a line being a position that could and would rotate. It seems as though Mike Johnston has continued this thought process and this year for the top six it is going to be Sidney Crosby/Phil Kessel and Evgeni Malkin/Patric Hornqvist.
Another one of those pairs is apparently newcomer Nick Bonino and Beau Bennett.
Morning Chipped Ice link ... Bennett, Bonino a pair so far: http://t.co/L2hCXLnJ3f
— Jason Mackey (@Mackey_Trib) September 21, 2015
I had Bennett pegged for fourth line duty to start the year but it appears the coaching staff is giving Beau an opportunity to earn a third line role. Bonino will be Pittsburgh's third line center to start the year and logic dictates if Beau Bennett is his "partner" then he too will be on the third line. This is a nice opportunity for Bennett to show his skill set more appropriately. Playing with the unskilled grit that plagued Pittsburgh's lineup last year is not going to mesh well with a skilled player trying to gain his footing after injury. By all accounts Bennett has gotten stronger. He will now have to take advantage of opportunity. I think he will do a good job.
You will notice that David Perron is also playing in this game and it will be without Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin. Mike Johnston has mentioned that he is using the games as his main piece of evidence for assessing how players are doing. So for David Perron he will have to show he can play away from Crosby and Malkin for the time being if he wants to earn a coveted spot in the top six forward grouping. With Sergei Plotnikov looking the part so far, Pascal Dupuis back and flying on ice, and Chris Kunitz looking for redemption there will be a lot of competition for those two top six left wing positions. This is a great problem to have and is light years away from the terrible forward depth of recent memory.
People talk about using their own personal eye test all the time when trying to analyze players, but tonight we will all be utilizing the rarely used ear test with no TV coverage. Enjoy the living legend that is Mike Lange.
#Pens lines: Wilson-Bonino-Bennett, Kostopoulos-Sundqvist-Archibald, Sheary-Mouillierat-Perron, Sestito-Cullen-Farnham. -MC
— Pens Inside Scoop (@PensInsideScoop) September 21, 2015
Expect these #CBJ lines vs #Pens: Hartnell-Wennberg-Atkinson; Rychel-Sheppard-Boll; Pihlstrom-Chaput-Anderson; Milano-Karlsson-Bjorkstrand.
— Shawn Mitchell (@smitchcd) September 20, 2015
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