The Pittsburgh Penguins and Columbus Blue Jackets played last night and nobody saw any goals. Not because the game wasn't on TV, but because there weren't any.
Beau Bennett scored the lone goal in the shootout and here is the choppy footage of that
A Beau-tiful way to end our first game of the preseason. pic.twitter.com/nspFH7VIKe
— Pittsburgh Penguins (@penguins) September 22, 2015
Bennett also led the Penguins with 7 shots. David Perron had 6 shots on goal himself.
Tonight's game against Carolina will not only be on TV but it is going to have a lot of great players to watch including *dun dun dun*
PHIL KESSEL PENGUINS DEBUT
Tonight at 7:00PM ET the #Pens take the ice for their second game of the preseason. Here are tonight's lineups! pic.twitter.com/EKhnpchy7x
— Pittsburgh Penguins (@penguins) September 22, 2015
*Picture courtesy of penguins.nhl.com*
Lines at #Pens morning skate → Kunitz-Crosby-Kessel Plotnikov-Malkin-Hornqvist Dupuis-Dea-Sprong Uher-Porter-Biggs
— Pittsburgh Penguins (@penguins) September 22, 2015
Defensive pairings at skate → Maatta-Letang Gonchar-Dumoulin Clendening-Cole Goers-Ruopp
— Pittsburgh Penguins (@penguins) September 22, 2015
Other than Phil's debut there are some other things happening as well:
Seeing as though it is preseason and all I think it would be fun to see Daniel Sprong take a few shifts with Crosby and/or Malkin before he is sent back to juniors.
We will get our first look at Sergei Plotnikov and by all accounts he is doing a nice job at camp so far.
Adam Clendening makes his Pittsburgh debut.
Sergei Gonchar will don the Penguins crest for the first time since 2010.
We haven't seen Olli Maatta or Pascal Dupuis in a long long time and both will be in the lineup this evening.
Did Chris Kunitz find his hands again during the offseason?
No Rob Scuderi in last night's lineup or tonight (No Pouliot either).
Players to watch on Carolina include their two young highly thought of defense prospects, Hadyn Fleury and Noah Hanafin. However, there will be no Jordan Staal.
Through 2 nights: 3-on-3 OT in 7 preseason games. A winning goal was scored in 6 of 7 and only 1 of 6 took longer than 2:05. (@TSNResearch)
— Frank Seravalli (@frank_seravalli) September 22, 2015
Shootouts just aren't going to happen with the same frequency as they used to and that is OK.
Bobby Farnham has 39 career AHL points in 197 AHL games. That's 16 points per 82 games *in the AHL*
— Lyle Kossis (@LyleKossis) September 22, 2015
Bobby Farnham is 26 years old
Graduation rates of Fs NCAAers -> NHL by age 17: 17.24% 18: 11.55% 19: 5.86% 20: 3.42% 21: 2.64% 22: 1.38% 23: 0.82% 24: 0.55% 25: 0%
— Josh Weissbock (@joshweissbock) July 21, 2015
There's also this
— NHL Blue Jackets (@BlueJacketsNHL) September 22, 2015
Here is an injury update that pertains to the Penguins first regular season game. It appears the Stars will definitely have their Art Ross Trophy winning winger
Benn, Hemsky return to scrimmage ice, expect to be ready for Stars opener | @sportsdaydfw http://t.co/PpWqQ7eZw5
— Mike Heika (@MikeHeika) September 22, 2015
Meesh from The Pens Blog gave us all a sober reminder of just how "interesting" some of the preseason performances are:
ICYMI, Thoughts: Preseason Game 1 – #Pens play Blue Jackets. No one sees it. - http://t.co/7KX9AzZwle
— Meesh (@HockeyMeesh) September 22, 2015
Elsewhere in the NHL – Preseason is fun! Goals for Brian Gibbons, Jayson Megna, and Nick Spaling tonight. TWO ASSISTS for TYLER KENNEDY. If you want to know how much stock to put into preseason, just read those stats again.
The big three (Crosby, Malkin, Kessel) will be in the lineup together for the first time tonight and while it may only be the preseason it will still be fun to watch because watching great players is always fun. Still crazy to think that Phil is in the black and gold.
Thanks for reading!