Penguins vs. Capitals
PPG Paints Arena | Pittsburgh, PA
Tuesday, January 19 | 7:00 PM Eastern
NHL-N | | NBCS-WA | AT&TSN-PT
The Penguins (1-2-0) look to sweep the rival Capitals (2-0-1) and even their record on the season.
The Penguins put together a gutty effort, coming back from 2-1 and 3-2 deficits to force overtime, and eventually, a shootout where Jake Guentzel delivered the game-winner by sliding the puck through Ilya Samsonov’s five-hole.
Casey DeSmith’s first start of the season ends with a win – stopping 20 of 23 shots. It earns him another start.
The Penguins lineup will remain largely unchanged, but with the addition of Kasperi Kapanen, who has completed his post-immigration quarantine. It’s likely he’ll join the top line of Crosby and Guentzel, bumping ERod to the fourth line and Sam Lafferty out of the lineup.
Kapanen will play his first game as a Penguin, after the Penguins drafted him in the first round in 2014. Kapanen played 202 games and recorded 90 points with the Leafs. The Penguins surrendered a 2020 first round pick to retrieve him from Toronto in a larger deal.
The Penguins will be without Mike Matheson for an extended period of time due to an upper-body injury. Perhaps coincidental, but likely not, the defensive corps looked as good as it has throughout the young season.
Forwards
Guentzel – Crosby – Kapanen
Zucker – Malkin – Rust
McCann – Jankowski – Tanev
Rodrigues – Blueger – Sceviour
Defensemen
Dumoulin – Letang
Pettersson – Marino
Ruhwedel – Riikola
In Net
DeSmith
The Capitals will look to get things back on track after dropping Sunday’s contest to the Penguins. They’ll shuffle up their forward lines a bit and keep the defense largely the same.
Peter Laviolette feels like the Capitals can get to another gear. A major piece of that will be staying out of the penalty box.
And we’re again taking too many penalties. I didn’t want to come in here and before we even started saying, ‘You guys need to stop taking penalties,’ because I don’t know whether this group is going to or not going to. It hasn’t been the start that we’re looking for, so we addressed it. But I think that these are the things that you just kind of come in and you’re working through it, and your eyes are open and you’re just learning every day about your team and about your players. – Head Coach Peter Laviolette
Forwards
Ovechkin – Backstrom – Wilson
Vrana – Kuznetsov – Sprong
Panik – Eller – Oshie
Hagelin – Dowd – Hathaway
Defensemen
Orlov – Carlson
Dillon – Schultz
Chara – Jensen
In Net
Samsonov
Keep Hustlin’.
ICE Cold Fact: The 1st rule I learned when I started my life of Hustlin….. Lazy = Broke 💎
— ICE T (@FINALLEVEL) January 15, 2021
Go Pens.
Add The Sports Daily to your Google News Feed!
