Recreation 1 Preview: Pittsburgh Penguins @ Philadelphia Flyers

Who: Pittsburgh Penguins (0-0-0) at Philadelphia Flyers (0-0-0)

When: 5:30 p.m. East (the very first game of the season for the entire league!)

How to watch: A nationally televised game on NBCSN in America. Check out NHL.tv for the league’s official online opportunity. SN1 in Canada.

Chase opponents: This is also the first game for the Flyers. Due to the schedule, these two teams will meet on Friday at 7:00 p.m., also in Philadelphia.

Ballpoint pen way ahead: After Wednesday / Friday in Philly, the penguins will return home for the next four games, where they will see the capital cities on Sunday afternoon and next Tuesday (1/17). Then the Rangers come to town for two games on Friday (1/22) and then on Sunday 1/24.

SBN team counterpart: Philly is repeated by our friends at Broad Street Hockey.

Possible lines

Forward

Oskar Lindblom – Sean Couturier – Travis Konecny

Claude Giroux – Kevin Hayes – Joel Farabee

James van Riemsdyk – Nolan Patrick – Jakub Voracek

Michael Raffl – Scott Laughton – Nicolas Aube-Kubel

defense

Ivan Provorov / Justin Braun

Travis Sanheim / Phil Myers

Robert Hagg / Erik Gustafsson

– –

Expected starting goalkeeper: Carter Hart

Scratches: Morgan Frost (healthy), Shayne Gostisbehere (unknown), Mark Friedman (healthy).

Taxi squad: Connor Bunnaman, Andy Andreoff, Sam Morin, Nate Prosser, Alex Lyon and Carsen Twarynski

– A warm and sincere welcome back to Lindbolm, who is returning to his first regular season games since battling a rare cancer in 2020. Lindbolm played two games in the bubble in Toronto for the Flyers in early September.

– It will be another welcome for Nolan Patrick, who will compete in his first game since April 2019, as he had problems with migraines throughout the 2019-20 season.

– Add Joel Farabee with Lindbolm and Patrick and that’s three young players on three different lines that could help get the Flyers up and running.

– One player who will not be in the line-up is defender Shayne Gostisbehere, who was simply deemed “unable to play” and had not been on the team for about a week. He was excluded from the start tonight.

He said it ..

“He wants to win.

“That work ethic and passion for gaming rubs off everyone.

“He’s only getting better.”

– Alain Vigneault on Claude Giroux pic.twitter.com/CEtOdE3CNS

– Jordan Hall (@JHallNBCS) January 12, 2021

The 33-year-old Giroux had just one goal for the Flyers in 16 bubble playoff games. Last season’s 53 points were his lowest in a season since 2009/10.

And now for the pens ..

Things to know and facts about Pens PR:

-The Penguins will be competing against the Flyers for the eighth time in team history and for the first time since January 19, 2013 (3-1 win in Philadelphia) at the season opener. Pittsburgh is 3-3-1 (win-loss-tie) in these competitions.

-The Penguins scored points in 11 of 17 games against Metropolitan Division last season (8-6-3).

-Pittsburgh has points in five of their last six games against Philadelphia (3-1-2).

– The Penguins have points in nine of their last eleven games (7-2-2) against the Flyers.

Lines:

Forward

Jake Güntzel – Sidney Crosby – Evan Rodrigues

Jason Zucker – Evgeni Malkin – Bryan Rust

Jared McCann – Mark Jankowski – Brandon Tanev

Colton Sceviour – – Teddy Blueger-Sam Lafferty

defense

Brian Dumoulin /. Kris Letang

Mike Matheson / John Marino

Marcus Pettersson / Cody Ceci

Scratches: Juuso Riikola (healthy), Chad Ruhwedel (healthy)

Expected starting goalkeeper: Tristan Jarry

IR: Zach Aston-Reese

NHL non-squad: Kasperi Kapanen (Covid quarantine)

Taxi Squad: Anthony Angello, Friedrich Gaudreau, Drew O’Connor, Pierre-Olivier Joseph, Alex D’Orio, Maxime Lagace

– –

He said it …

Malkin said they are still angry about the end of last season, and repeated that in another answer. “I would like to say again that we are not satisfied with the last playoffs. We are back and we want to be a stronger team and play so much better.”

– Pens in the scoop (@PensInsideScoop) January 12, 2021

Malkin sounded confident and almost powerful yesterday, realizing how much he missed the game and is looking forward to another season starting. Geno also pointed out that another Stanley Cup gives him a four, which would be a record for a Russian player, which is a motivating factor for him. I gotta love it

Three things to look out for

# 1: Sid’s biggest fans are missing

– The gracious Philadelphia residents shared some of Sidney Crosby’s best moments. And yet there will hardly be a “Crosby Sucks” in this game that can be heard in the building. It will generally be strange to see buildings without fans in the NHL. Better than nothing, but still an unusual environment for NHL hockey. I think we all kind of know what to expect since it happened the previous summer, but it’s just one of those gross things I can never really get over.

# 2: wide open game?

– Without real pre-season or exhibition games, this is an unusual start to the season for the players too. Will the offenses be able to take advantage of potentially out of sync defensive groups and goalkeepers who have not faced real game situations in such a long time? Or will the attackers themselves be sloppy and unable to take chances? I’m not sure what to expect but it will be very interesting to see if there might be more goals than usual in the first week or two.

# 3: opportunity is knocking

– As expected in a long off-season, Evan Rodrigues will be the third bike on the Güntzel-Crosby line. Oh yeah, nobody thought that would happen until about a week ago, but it’s still a great (if temporary) chance for Rodrigues to start part 2 of his stint with the penguins on a good note. The ripple effects of Kasperi Kapanen’s absence mean Brandon Tanev plays a line and Sam Lafferty gets a jersey for the opener.

Mike Matheson has had a strong training camp and will play with John Marino. Mark Jankowski was marginalized in Calgary and now plays a very important role. Tristan Jarry starts for the first time in the NHL. Cody Ceci will be … there.

Lots of new opportunities and opportunities for some players to improve and get out of the gate the right way. In a short season, the start will be crucial. How some of these new faces appear in new or unexpected places on today’s lineup map will go a long way in determining what they look like.

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