Game Preview: San Jose Sharks @ Pittsburgh Penguins 3/14/2024 - Lines, how to watch

Fans attending the game get a Jaromir Jagr bobblehead, at least

Who: San Jose Sharks (16-41-7, 39 points, 8th place Pacific Division) @ Pittsburgh Penguins (28-27-9, 65 points, 7th place Metropolitan Division)

When: 7 p.m. ET

How to Watch: SportsNet Pittsburgh and NBC Sports Bay Area in the respective local markets, streaming on ESPN+ for all those brave enough elsewhere

Pens’ Path Ahead: The endless March continues, the Pens host the New York Rangers on Saturday afternoon at 3pm and then the Detroit Red Wings come to the ‘Burgh for a Sunday 6pm game. After that, it’s a three game road trip that begins next Tuesday in New Jersey before heading west with stops in Dallas and Colorado (which...yikes).

Opponent Track: The Sharks beat Ottawa 2-1 last Saturday to break a nine-game (0-7-2) losing streak. But then they lost again on Tuesday in Philadelphia, 3-2, to start out a five-game road trip.

Season Series: The first matchup was the Pens’ biggest win of the season, a 10-2 smacking of SJ in their own building back on November 4th. Bryan Rust, Reilly Smith and Jake Guentzel each recorded four points in that game.

Hidden Stat: Pens PR points out that the Penguins have points in 16 of their last 22 home games (12-6-4). We’ll throw in that makes for a 104 point full season pace (not that a team would play a full season at home, but just to give the lay of the land there).

Getting to know the Sharks

Projected lines

FORWARDS

Alex Barabanov - Mikael Granlund - Fabian Zetterlund

Filip Zadina - William Eklund - Luke Kunin

Thomas Bordeleau - Nico Sturm - Klim Kostin

Givani Smith - Ryan Carpenter - Justin Bailey

DEFENSEMEN

Mario Ferraro / Kyle Burroughs

Henry Thrun/ Marc-Edouard Vlasic

Jacob MacDonald / Calen Addison

Goalies: Magnus Chrona, Devin Cooley

Possible scratches: Mike Hoffman, Kevin Lebanc

IR: Logan Couture, Mackenzie Blackwood, Vitek Vanecek, Matt Benning, Ty Emberson

—Zadina is the player to watch that can hurt you, if you’re the Pens tonight. The former Detroit sixth overall pick in 2018 scored both of SJ’s goals in their 3-2 loss on Tuesday. Zadina has six goals in 13 games since the All-Star break and is by far the hottest Shark player out there.

—Some classic “remember some guys” on this team; former Penguin prospect Addison has found SJ as a place to claw out a full-time NHL job after a rocky go of it up in Minnesota (after being sent there in the Jason Zucker deal). Kostin is the player the Blues took after trading Ryan Reaves to the Pens, leading the much gnashing of teeth on potentially losing out on a top young player for getting an enforcer.

—And some “wait, who the hell ARE these guys” as well. Hand up, I’ve never heard of Devin Cooley, the 25-year old backup goalie on the NHL roster now. The undrafted player out of the University of Denver has yet to make his NHL debut. Honestly I would have guessed “Devin Cooley” is the name of a small forward on the Pistons or a linebacker for the Rams or a long lost cousin of Logan or something, but turns out he’s a goalie on the Sharks.

—Boy howdy, if you’re Logan Couture you kinda want to stay on IR for a while, no? The retained salary trade on Tomas Hertl means SJ can’t hold back any more salary in a new trade until 2025. That likely locks Couture on this team for another season, given his $8.0m salary and age.

—I felt really bad for Magnus Chrona, the goalie who made his NHL debut in the 10-2 beatdown the Pens gave the Sharks in November. Chrona had to come in cold in relief in what was a 6-1 game and play 30 minutes. He made a valiant effort, stopping 13/17 shots in that game. Since then, he’s bounced around the minors but was needed as a call-up due to Vanecek’s injury. And, hey, I was heartened to see Chrona has a .910 save% in four March NHL games in the recent call up. He’s been even better in the most recent past, stopping 69/74 shots (.945 save%) in the last two games. Not a bad little redemption arc for Chrona after the Pittsburgh experience in the first game of his NHL career (not to mention his first NHL start in December, running into the Edmonton buzzsaw and lasting only 20 minutes after surrendering four goals). He also gave up seven goals in a game to NYI last week, so not saying he’s totally got the NHL thing figured out, but it was nice to see him get back on track after getting put in a tough spot at the very start.

Player stats

(via hockeydb)

—Mikael Granlund is really out there leading an NHL team in scoring in the year 2024. Say no more about the state of the Sharks.

—But to say a little more, it’s equal parts pitiful and embarrassing how this team has fallen. That is the cyclical nature of the sport and despite not getting the ultimate prize, the Sharks were up among the NHL’s best clubs during the Marleau/Thornton era in the early days of the salary cap (2006-14). Ironically, the season they had the most playoff success when they memorably made it to the Stanley Cup Final in 2016 and lost to the Penguins was far from the height of Sharks’ powers. SJ was a third place team that year that missed the playoffs the year prior and wouldn’t win a round the next season. For four seasons from 2008-11, they won the division with 105+ points every year as a power, but ran second fiddle in the Western Conference those days to Detroit and then later Chicago.

—And as a complete aside, it’s fair to say that SJ traded for Erik Karlsson in 2018 a few years too late, all things considered. It’s looking increasingly clear that the Penguins have done so as well in 2023. There’s a twisted cosmic joke going on for Karlsson with the uncontrollable circumstances with his professional timing — even the Ottawa Senators (who were at their peak from 2003-2007) ended up drafting Karlsson in 2008, and he didn’t get up and really running until a few years after they were at their best. That sort of thing is out of everyone’s hands, but is a cruel amount of repetition that Karlsson would have been better off at every stop along the way had he somehow been able to get there a handful of years sooner.

And now for the Penguins

Projected lines

FORWARDS

Michael Bunting - Sidney Crosby - Bryan Rust

Reilly Smith - Evgeni Malkin - Drew O’Connor

Rickard Rakell - Lars Eller - Valtteri Puustinen

Emil Bemstrom - Noel Acciari - Jeff Carter

DEFENSEMEN

P.O. Joseph / Kris Letang

Marcus Pettersson / Erik Karlsson

Ryan Graves / John Ludvig

Goalies: Tristan Jarry and Alex Nedeljkovic

Potential Scratches: Jesse Puljujarvi, Ryan Shea

IR: Matt Nieto (knee surgery), Jansen Harkins (hand injury)

—The Pens cancelled practice yesterday after Tuesday’s overtime game.

—The team also quietly recalled Shea to give them an extra defender, taking the place of Jonathan Gruden on the roster.

—Shea makes the third call-up from the AHL. Teams are only allowed four recalls for the time from trade deadline to the end of the season — though they have unlimited emergency recalls if they drop under the compliment of healthy players (12F/6D). All this to point out, if you’re pining for a Sam Poulin call up, you’ve probably gotta hold your horses on that being in the cards in the near future, barring a couple of injuries.

Can the offense break out?

Painful tweet ahead from Josh Yohe, who points out the Penguins have only scored 11 total goals in their last eight games, and unsurprisingly with that knowledge, even the star players are struggling.

San Jose should be a reprieve for what ails the Pens in that department, at least temporarily. The Sharks have given up 4.08 goals per game since the All-Star break. It’s even worse in the last two weeks, surrendering 37 goals in their previous eight games (4.63 average). We did just see Pittsburgh hang five goals on Columbus last week, even though they’re in a huge offensive rut it’s not like they can’t still score against poor defense/goalie combinations and that is what they should be looking at tonight.

A tough schedule (NYR, DET, DAL, COL) is coming up for Pittsburgh, leading tonight to likely be more of a one-off than a sign of things to come. One would think if the offense doesn’t kick into gear tonight, it could be a long, long time until they do again.