The Pittsburgh Penguins enter their final contest of a three-game home stand looking to finish the stretch above five-hundred against the Tampa Bay Lightning Sunday night. After defeating the Florida Panthers, 3-1, on Friday, Pittsburgh evened their record during the three-game stretch. Tampa Bay travels to Pittsburgh after beating up on the Carolina Hurricanes, 5-2, Saturday night.
When and where: Consol Energy Center (Pittsburgh, PA); 7:30 p.m. et (ROOT Sports, NBC Sports Network, TSN2)
Season records: Penguins (12-6-0; 24 pts.); Lightning (9-7-1; 19 pts.)
Season series: First meeting of the season
Last meeting: The last time the Penguins and Lightning met was February 25, 2012, and the result was not what Tampa Bay was hoping for. That day, the Lightning went into Pittsburgh and was lit up to the score of 8-1. Evgeni Malkin led the scoring ambush for the Penguins, scoring a hat trick and adding one assist. Jordan Staal also registered two goals and had an assist on the final goal of the game scored by Pascal Dupuis. Marc-Andre Fleury stopped thirty-four and thirty-five Lightning shots to pick up thirty-second win of the season.
Who to keep an eye on:
1. Steven Stamkos: The Lightning superstar is on a five-game points scoring streak that sees him scoring nine points in that span. On the season, Stamkos has twenty-six points including twelve goals and fourteen assists. It will be interesting to see if the Penguins use their shutdown pair of Brooks Orpik and Paul Martin to shut down Stamkos or perhaps Brandon Sutter in some role.
2. Cory Conacher: The Calder Memorial trophy candidate is also on a point-scoring streak of his own. Conacher has registered a point in each of his last four games with a goal and three assists. The twenty-three year old center leads all rookies in points with sixteen, three points ahead of Jonathan Huberdeau of the Panthers.
Former Penguin alert: LW Ryan Malone (IR), RW Adam Hall, G Mathieu Garon
Injuries:
Penguins: C Evgeni Malkin (upper body)
Lightning: LW Ryan Malone (lower body), D Mattias Ohlund (knee), D Matt Taormina (upper body)
Additional notes:
-Penguins will be wearing their blue alternate uniforms for the second straight game, and third time this year.
Projected lineups:
Penguins (via penguins.nhl.com)
14 Chris Kunitz (A)-87 Sidney Crosby (C)-18 James Neal
19 Beau Bennett-16 Brandon Sutter-9 Pascal Dupuis
24 Matt Cooke-15 Dustin Jeffrey-48 Tyler Kennedy
10 Tanner Glass-46 Joe Vitale-27 Craig Adams
44 Brooks Orpik (A)-7 Paul Martin
2 Matt Niskanen-58 Kris Letang
47 Simon Despres-5 Deryk Engelland
29 Marc-Andre Fleury
Lightning (via dailyfaceoff.com)
89 Cory Conacher-91 Steven Stamkos (A)-16 Teddy Purcell
67 Benoit Pouliot-4 Vincent Lecavalier (C)-26 Martin St. Louis (A)
17 Alexander Killorn-11 Tom Pyatt-44 Nate Thompson
19 B.J. Crombeen-18 Adam Hall-71 Richard Panik
2 Eric Brewer-25 Matt Carle
6 Sami Salo-77 Victor Hedman
3 Keith Aulie-47 Marc-Andre Bergeron
39 Anders Lindback
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