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The Pittsburgh crowd is in for a treat tonight not only will they see one of the better teams in the NHL, but they will get one last look at the Finnish Flash Teemu Selanne. Teemu Selanne is not only an Anaheim legend, but a legend of hockey.
Barring a Stanley Cup Final that would pit the Penguins against the Ducks this will be the last time that Selanne plays in front of the Pittsburgh crowd. The Penguins might not mind that because over his career Selanne has crushed the Penguins.
In his career Teemu Selanne has played against the Penguins 21 times. In those 21 games he has 13 goals and 21 assists for 34 points. Safe to say he enjoys playing against the Penguins.
Much like Jaromir Jagr it is still great to be watching a legend like Selanne play in the NHL. In back to back games the Penguins will have played against both of them.
I've been told there will be a brief video tribute during the first tv timeout for Teemu Selanne at CEC tonight.
— Seth Rorabaugh (@emptynetters) November 18, 2013
Teemu Selanne is just one of the storylines entering tonight’s game. The Anaheim Ducks as a team have started the year on fire. They are 15-5-2 and are tied with Chicago for the highest amount of points in the NHL. A big part of their success can be traced to their dynamic duo of Ryan Getzlaf and Corey Perry. Over this past offseason the Ducks committed heavily to both players by giving them enormously expensive contract extensions. Getzlaf and Perry were the first two stars to sign their big money deals after the new CBA went into effect. Due to the new rules the Ducks were unable to front load the contracts to lower the overall AAV. Only Ovechkin (9.538M), Malkin (9.5M), and Crosby (8.7M) have a higher cap hit than Perry (8.625M). Only Claude Giroux (8.275M) has a higher cap hit than Getzlaf (8.25M) aside from the previously mentioned players.
It seems like a high price to pay but in the current CBA climate it was a must for Anaheim to lock those players in.
So far this season Ryan Getzlaf and Corey Perry are tied for the Anaheim point lead with 23 points. Getzlaf has 10 goals while Perry has 12 goals.
Getzlaf and Perry are two of my more favorite players to watch in the NHL, I am always excited when they go head to head with the Penguins.
Also contributing to the Ducks success is their improvement in puck possession. Last year the Ducks struggled and at times were near the bottom of the league at controlling the puck. They finished the season ranked 19th with a Fenclose% of 49.7%. This season they have turned that mark around and are ranked 9th at 52.8%.
Enough about the Ducks for right now. The big news today is that the Penguins have indeed made some alterations to their line combos. They aren’t exactly the changes that I outlined yesterday but they aren’t that far off either and I like the fact that they are willing to try some new things.
Here are the Penguins line combos from practice today:
Kunitz-Crosby-Bennett Dupuis-Malkin-Neal Jokinen-Sutter-Gibbons Glass-Vitale-Adams (D'Agostini, Sill)
The defensemen rotated
I like seeing Bennett getting the opportunity to show he belongs in the top 6. It will be up to him to perform with this chance alongside Crosby. I also like bringing some extra speed to the Malkin line with Dupuis.
As I wrote yesterday Sutter and Jokinen played together a little bit in Carolina so that shouldn’t be too hard of an adjustment. However, I cannot speak to Gibbons who will be making his debut tonight. I have not watched him play enough to have an opinion on his placement with the third line.
The lines might not work right off the bat but you can’t fault the Penguins for trying some new things lately.
Here are their power play lines (courtesy of Penguins official website)
PP1: Letang & Malkin up top. Crosby, Kunitz & Neal below.
PP 2: Niskanen & Martin up top. Sutter, Bennett & Jokinen down low. Dupuis subbed with Sutter.
Personally I would prefer Martin to take the reins of power play QB for the time being. I would bump Letang over to the left circle and would take Kunitz off the power play to make room for that. The Malkin Letang combo on the blue line did not do a good job last game. The Ducks are 27th in the league in penalty killing; this is an area where the Penguins have to expose if they want to start winning again.
Injuries
Jakub Silfverberg is still out with a broken hand and Sheldon Souray is still out because of wrist surgery.
Saku Koivu and Matt Beleskey rejoined the Ducks at full practice yesterday and should be available for tonight’s matchup.
No updates on Scuderi, Vokoun, or Kobasew
Line Combos
Marc Andre Fleury will be starting for the Penguins and Viktor Fasth will be starting for the Ducks.
The Penguins changes were listed above, the projected lines for the Anaheim Ducks will be posted when more information becomes available.
Power Play
Penguins power play is 9th overall at 20.8%.
Ducks have the 26th power play in the NHL with 11.7%. This is a huge drop off from last year when the Ducks were 4th overall at 21.7%.
Penguins are 13th in the NHL with 72 opportunities while the Ducks are 7th with 77.
Penalty Kill
Penguins are 8th overall at 83.9%
The Penguins started the year struggling on the PK but they are slowly working their way up the rankings. One of the few bright spots from the loss against New Jersey was the Penguins ability to kill off Sidney Crosby’s double minor for high sticking.
The Ducks are 27th overall at 75.4%.
Fenclose%
The Penguins are 5th overall with 54.9%
The Ducks are 9th overall at 52.8%
Even Strength Save %
The Penguins are 24th sitting at .914%. Marc Andre Fleury is at .919% The Ducks are 9th overall at .929%, a full .10 better than Pittsburgh.
Trends
Ducks are 4-1 in their last 5 vs. Metropolitan.
Penguins are 4-0 in their last 4 vs. Pacific.
Home team is 8-2 in the last 10 meetings.
Ducks are 1-4 in the last 5 meetings in Pittsburgh Stats courtesy of Covers.com
Tonight’s game pits one of the best teams from the Western Conference against a struggling Penguins team who has gone 1-4 in their last 5 games. There will be a wealth of offensive talent between both teams and should be a fun game to watch.
This game is also a lot more interesting because of the line alterations that the Penguins have made. I will be looking forward to seeing how things play out this evening.
Thanks for reading!
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