The Pittsburgh Penguins and New Jersey Devils conclude their home-and-home weekend series Sunday night in Pittsburgh. The Devils upended the Penguins in Newark Saturday afternoon, defeating Pittsburgh 3-1. The win gave the Devils the Atlantic division lead by one point over the Penguins.
When and where: Consol Energy Center (Pittsburgh, PA); 7:30 p.m. et (NBC Sports Network)
Season records: Penguins (8-4-0; 16 pts.); Devils (7-1-3; 17 pts.)
Series record: Series tied 1-1
Last meeting: As mentioned previously, the Devils ended the Penguins winning streak Saturday afternoon. The Devils were sparked by rookie Stefan Matteau, who scored his first career goal in the NHL. Bobby Butler also registered one goal and one assist in the victory. Martin Brodeur stopped twenty-four of the Penguins’ twenty-five shots for his 662nd career win. Brandon Sutter scored his fourth goal of the season 1:23 into the game for the Penguins only tally on the afternoon.
Keys to the game:
1. Discipline: Saturday afternoon saw the Penguins fall apart, committing twelve penalties for ten Devils power play opportunities. Having your penalty killers hold the opposition to only two goals on ten power play chances looks good on the score sheet, but not when you lose the game 3-1. The Penguins will have to be more disciplined if they want to split the weekend series.
2. Finishing your chances: There were at least three chance the Penguins had to put a puck past Brodeur, but failed to do so. The chances that come to mind are when Bordeur stacked the pads in the first period against Chris Kunitz, and again during the first period when a James Neal rebound rolled off the stick of Zach Boychuk.
Injuries:
Penguins: D Matt Niskanen (ankle), D Kris Letang (lower-body injury)
Devils: RW Dainius Zubrus (upper-body injury)
Projected lineups (via Empty Netters):
Penguins
14 Chris Kunitz (A)-87 Sidney Crosby (C)-9 Pascal Dupuis
17 Zach Boychuk-71 Evgeni Malkin (A)-18 James Neal
24 Matt Cooke-16 Brandon Sutter-48 Tyler Kennedy
10 Tanner Glass-46 Joe Vitale-27 Craig Adams
44 Brooks Orpik-7 Paul Martin
47 Simon Despres-42 Dylan Reese
41 Robert Bortuzzo-5 Deryk Engelland
92 Tomas Vokoun
Devils
15 Stefan Matteau-19 Travis Zajac-17 Ilya Kovalchuk (A)
26 Patrik Elias (A)-14 Adam Henrique-23 David Clarkson
20 Ryan Carter-11 Stephen Gionta-18 Steve Bernier
22 Krystofer Barch-16 Jacob Josefson-9 Bobby Butler
28 Anton Volchenkov-2 Marek Zidlicky
29 Mark Fayne-24 Bryce Salvador (C)
6 Andy Greene-5 Adam Larsson
1 Johan Hedberg
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