It was not a good day for the Pittsburgh Penguins. They dropped two important points in the standings and it was to a team that hadn't won in seven games.

Sidney Crosby finished with both Penguins goals and Patric Hornqvist added the helpers on each of those but each time Pittsburgh scored Calgary tied the game up immediately thereafter. Each lead only lasted for a minute and a half.

Crosby's two goals give him 28 on the year which ties him with last year's total. Last year was the only year in which Crosby played in 70 or more games and failed to hit the 30 goal mark. He was previously five for five in that regard. It took Crosby 77 games to score 28 goals in 2014-15 and only 63 this year. Needless to say Crosby scores more goals without Mike Johnston.

Pittsburgh lost and Philadelphia won placing the Flyers only three points behind the Penguins with the same amount of games played.

The good news for Pittsburgh is that they get to play the New Jersey Devils without goaltender Cory Schneider. Schneider injured his groin and is currently out of commission. Seeing as though Schneider is one of the best goaltenders in the league who can steal a game on any given day this is quite a break.

Not too much has changed for New Jersey since the last time the teams met. The Devils are still one of the best CA60 teams in the league (2nd best) and the worst CF60 team. They play low event hockey.

Matt Murray and his .944 EVSV% will get another start for the Penguins today.

Something that may be flying under the radar a little bit is the play of Penguins defenseman Derrick Pouliot. Pouliot has the lowest quality of teammate on the Penguins but has one of the top possession rates so far. Here is the impact he has had on his fellow teammates so far this season

This is a visual with or without you chart from the new site Corsica.hockeydesigned by Emmanuel Perry. This site is the likely successor to War on Ice which is probably shutting down this month. The red bubbles are how teammates do away from Pouliot, the blue is how they do together, and the green is how Pouliot does away from that teammate.

Kris Letang has been an animal offensively this season. He has a 5v5 points per 60 rate of 1.25. Derrick Pouliot is currently at 1.22 albeit in a much smaller sample size.

Nothing suggests that Pouliot is out of place in the NHL and when the team is completely healthy he should not come out of the lineup.

For some odd reason the Penguins have called up Tom Sestito in an effort to actually downgrade from Kevin Porter

Mission accomplished.

Thanks for reading!

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