Gameday 17: Penguins vs. Lightning

Penguins vs. Lightning

PPG Paints Arena – Pittsburgh, PA

7:00PM Eastern – AT&TSN | TVAS

The Penguins return home to host one of the league’s top teams in the Tampa Bay Lightning, looking to get back on track after falling to the Devils on the road on Tuesday night.

Of course, the Penguins began the shakeups yesterday by shipping Carl Hagelin to Los Angeles in exchange for Tanner Pearson. If you’ve got a subscription to The Athletic, go read Jesse Marshall’s piece on Pearson and see the light.

Tanner Pearson impressing his new teammates at morning skate. (Except for maybe Casey DeSmith.) pic.twitter.com/yEHw4jotHS

— Jonathan Bombulie (@BombulieTrib) November 15, 2018

Snipetown, population Tanner.

In other news, Sid is hurt and everything is awful.

#Pens HCMS: Crosby will not play tonight against Tampa Bay. Skated this morning by himself. Status is day-to-day. Sense is that it’s probably going to be a week.

— Josh Getzoff (@JG_PxP) November 15, 2018

Thankfully, it doesn’t sound incredibly serious. But the Penguins have a grueling stretch of games coming up and doing so with Riley Sheahan as the second line center seems less than optimal.

The Penguins recalled Derek Grant from Wilkes-Barre/Scranton to fill the void at centre.

Simon – Malkin – Hornqvist

Guentzel – Sheahan – Kessel

Pearson – Cullen – Rust

Wilson – Grant – Aston-Reese

Johnson – Letang

Dumoulin – Ruhwedel

Maatta – Oleksiak

Murray

The Lightning are off to a strong start, racing out to a 12-5-1 record and sitting atop the Eastern Conference with 25 points. They trail only the Nashville Predators through the season’s first 18 games.

They may be in for some hard times of their own, though, as goaltender Andrei Vasilevskiy, he who rose to prominence after nearly stealing the Eastern Conference Final from the Penguins back in 2016.

Tough break for the Lightning. No pun intended. Sounds like Andrei Vasilevsky fractured his left foot and will be out for awhile.

— Darren Dreger (@DarrenDreger) November 15, 2018

However, the Lightning’s systemic dominance doesn’t mean that no Vasilevskiy means no hope no cash nor no jerbs. In fact… they may be better off, statistically speaking.

Here – this chart says it.

Contrarian viewpoint: #GoBolts Vasilevskiy's injury may not slow down the Lightning as much as you might think.
His Sv% ranked 10th among Goalies BUT TBL was #1 in Exp Sv%. Andrei was 17th in "Sv% above expected" and 37th (!) in HDSV%.

Viz Gallery: https://t.co/gVthkzLNLd pic.twitter.com/sjMW3Cy3SP

— Bill Comeau (@Billius27) November 15, 2018

Miller – Stamkos – Kucherov

Gourde – Point – Johnson

Killorn – Cirelli – Joseph

Erne – Paquette – Callahan

Girardi – Hedman

Cernak – McDonagh

Coburn – Sergachev

Domingue

Seriously, though, Hedman/Girardi has to mirror Letang/DeepDish as one of the biggest stud-being-weighed-down-by-a-fucking-albatross pairings in the NHL.

Weather the Storm.

Go Pens.