Who: Dallas Stars (8-5-0, 13 points, 3rd place Central Division) @ Pittsburgh penguins (6-8-2, 14 points, 6th place Metropolitan Division)

When: 7:00 PM ET

How to watch: SportsNet Pittsburgh, streaming on ESPN+ and streaming in the Dallas metro area on Victory+

The path of the pens forward: Busy week starting today with four games in six days before the schedule breaks up a bit. The Pens need to weather the storm tonight and then really start climbing with games against Detroit (Wednesday), @Columbus (Friday) and San Jose (Saturday) in the near future. The Pens will play seven of their next eight games at PPG games starting tonight, with the quick jump to Columbus this week being the only road game until after Thanksgiving.

Opponent track: October was a great month for the Stars, but then they had to jump two games across the Atlantic against Florida in Finland on November 1 and 2 – Dallas lost them both. Returning home, they beat Chicago, but lost to Winnipeg 4-1 in their last game (although to be fair, almost everyone loses to the Jets these days). Still, that makes for a 1-3-0 November, after starting the season 7-2-0 in October.

Season series: The Pens don’t travel to Dallas this season until April 5.

Hidden stats: Pittsburgh will be looking to snap a three-game losing streak against Dallas. The Penguins are 5-1-1 in their last seven home games against the Stars and they are 7-3-1 all-time at PPG Paints Arena (stick tap Pens PR).

Getting to know the stars

Projected lines

FORWARD

Jason Robertson – Roope Hintz – Evgenii Dadonov

Mason Marchment-Matt Duchene-Tyler Seguin

Jamie Benn-Wyatt Johnston-Logan Stankoven

Sam Steel-Mavrik Bourque-Colin Blackwell

DEFENDERS

Miro Heiskanen / Matt Dumba

Esa Lindell / Nils Lundkvist

Thomas Harley / Ilya Lyubushkin

Goalkeepers: Jake Oettinger and Casey DeSmith

Potential scratches: Oskar Back, Brendan Smith

IR: no

—Marchment took a puck in the face from his own teammate last game, but was able to get back into the game. He’ll look like a hockey player tonight.

— Jake Oettinger will come into today in a bad mood, having been pulled after giving up four goals against the Jets midway through the second period. Oettinger has won six games against teams that didn’t make the playoffs last season, but has lost all three games he played against playoff teams. Since Pittsburgh falls into the former category, he will look to get back on track.

Player Stats

(via hockeydb)

—Wyatt Johnston scored 24 goals as a rookie in 2022-23 and increased that to 32 goals last season, a bit of a surprise to see a slow goal-scoring start with just one in the Baker’s first twelve games of 2024-25.

– Logan Stankoven is the type of second-round pick (47th overall in 2021) that every team hopes can find that diamond in the rough and watch him develop into an NHL impact maker in barely any time.

– Matt Duchene has had a very interesting career path. He floundered mid-career from COL to CBJ, from OTT to NSH, but got back on track with the Predators. Now in his second season with the Stars, he has established himself as a quality component of a good team.

– It’s been a great start so far in Dallas for former Penguin DeSmith. He had a good season in Vancouver last year in his only season there, but given the goaltending market, he was able to land a three-year deal in free agency with the Stars.

And now the pens

Infographic courtesy of Pittsburgh Penguins PR

Projected lines

FORWARD

Drew O’Connor-Sidney Crosby-Rickard Rakell

Michael Bunting-Evgeni Malkin-Bryan Rust

Jesse Puljujarvi-Lars Eller Noel Acciari

Anthony Beauvillier-Blake Lizotte-Valtteri Puustinen

DEFENDERS

Matt Grzelcyk / Kris Letang

Marcus Pettersson / Erik Karlsson

Ryan Graves / Jack St. Ivany

Goalkeepers: Alex Nedeljkovic, Joel Blomqvist, Tristan Jarry

Potential scratches: Ryan Shea, Cody Glass (concussion) and one of the goalies

IR: Matt Nieto (knee surgery), Kevin Hayes (week-to-week upper body injury)

—There were some injury updates from Mike Sullivan yesterday, and they were mostly bad. Kevin Hayes was demoted from day-to-day to week-to-week with what appears to be an undisclosed upper-body injury that will keep him out of the lineup for a while. There was no timetable on Cody Glass, but he was diagnosed with a concussion during Thursday night’s game. Glass isn’t officially on IR, but that’s just a technicality at this point as the team doesn’t need a roster opening.

—Bryan Rust’s return from injury marks the end of the 5v5 union between Crosby and Malkin. Now that the Pens have a bit more talent, they can split the star centers to create two scoring lines and they used the above configurations in practice yesterday. That offers great opportunities for Drew O’Connor and Michael Bunting to emerge as the team’s best attackers. Pittsburgh will need these players to start producing more than they have so far (both have two goals and one assist in 5v5 this season).

Three goalkeepers shuffle

It appears the Penguins will have three goalies on their NHL roster for the time being.

Sullivan said the team will “work out a game plan where we keep these guys all in the mix.” A starting goalie for tonight wasn’t announced a day in advance, but clues could come from how the goaltending activity goes during the morning skate.

Killing it

Pittsburgh’s penalty kill has been very good in recent weeks.

Van Pens PR:

The Penguins rank fifth in the NHL in penalty kill percentage at 86.7%. Over the last ten games dating back to October 20, the team was ranked first in the NHL and went 26-for-28 in that span:

Highest PK% since October 20, NHL:

Team PK PK%

Pittsburgh 26-28 92.9%
Philadelphia 26-28 92.9%
NY Rangers 24-26 92.3%
Nashville 35-38 92.1%
Washington 32-24 87.5%