Penguins @ Wild
Xcel Energy Center – St. Paul, MN
6:00PM Eastern – AT&TSN | SN | NHL.TV
The Penguins head out to Minnesota and look to get wild on New Year’s Eve as they round out their season series against Bruce Boudreau’s club as they polish off the 2018 calendar year.
The Penguins surrendered the first goal to Minnesota in a battle just 11 days back, but they fought back to take an impressive 2-1 victory led by a pair of goals by the suddenly red hot Bryan Rust. Unfortunately, Rust remains day-to-day with a lower body injury and will not be available tonight.
The Penguins’ hot play as of late has led them to 5 straight victories and 21 points out of a possible 26 in their last 13 contests. This is due in relatively large part to Matthew Murray’s resurgence – the two-time Stanley Cup winning goaltender has not lost a decision since his return on December 15, allowing just 1.88 goals per game and posting a ridiculous .959SV% in that span. Casey “The Smith” DeSmith hasn’t been bad, either. He’ll get the nod between the pipes tonight for the Pens.
Updates ahead of tonight's game: Bryan Rust is still day-to-day and will not play. Olli Maatta will be a game-time decision. Casey DeSmith will get the start in net. pic.twitter.com/xb32vpENjb
— Pittsburgh Penguins (@penguins) December 31, 2018
With Rust shelved for the evening, Zach Aston-Reese will get a chance to play with Sid and Bake.
Guentzel – Crosby – Aston-Reese
Simon – Malkin – Hornqvist
Pearson – Brassard – Kessel
Grant – Cullen – Sheahan
Dumoulin – Letang
Oleksiak – Riikola
Pettersson – Johnson
DeSmith
The Wild are mired in a bit of a slump, but the picture is basically the same as what we saw when these two teams tangled a week and a half ago. Penguins Slaw is getting an early start on NYE so he’s just going to link you to that preview here and show you the lines.
Zucker – Staal – Granlund
Parise – Coyle – Kunin
Greenway – Koivu – Neiderreiter
Foligno – Fehr – Hendricks
Suter – Spurgeon
Brodin – Pateryn
Bartkowski – Prosser
Dubnyk
Get Wilder.
Go Pens.
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