The Penguins Utah beat 5-4 on Oct. 19 were a road team playing the last night of a trip that had gone 0-3. The team waiting at PPG Paints Arena on Thursday is 4-1-0 at home, and its penalty kill hasn't allowed a goal there in 11 tries. That matters more to this Utah team than to most, because on the road the Mammoth have lived on the power play: 12 of their 23 road goals came with the man advantage. Thursday answers whether that power play can score on that kill. We think it scores once, and once is enough.
Every number here is through Tuesday's games (Oct. 27). Pittsburgh last played on Saturday and doesn't play again before puck drop.
- When and where: 5:00 PM MT Thursday at PPG Paints Arena. TV is SN, TVAS, Mammoth+, Utah16 and SN-PIT; radio is KSL Sports Zone (97.5 FM). Full schedule and the NHL.com game center.
- Records: Utah is 8-5-0, second in the Central by points with 16, and 4-3-0 on the road. Pittsburgh is 5-6-1, 4-1-0 at home and 1-5-1 away, and has won two straight.
- Series: The second and last meeting. Utah won the first 5-4 at the Delta Center (our recap).
- Trip: Game one of six straight on the road. Utah is back home on Nov. 12.
The Penguins at home are a different team
On the road, Pittsburgh has given up 28 goals in seven games, four a night. At home it's 11 in five. Arturs Silovs has stopped 94 of 102 shots at home (.922) and 92 of 107 on the road (.860). Our first Penguins preview caught them on the road.
The home record isn't as clean as 4-1-0 sounds. Three of the four wins went to overtime or a shootout, and Adam Gretz of PensBurgh noted that Florida came in on a back-to-back for last Thursday's 4-0 shutout. Penguins coach Dan Muse liked the two wins anyway. "We needed to play a better brand of hockey. We still have things to clean up, but I think these last two games have been a step in the right direction," he said after the Nashville game, per Brandon Karafilis of PittsburghPenguins.com.
They're also getting players back, Ben Kindel among them. On the team's flight home from Salt Lake City on Oct. 20, the day after the game in Utah, Kindel collapsed about 10 minutes after takeoff. He was given oxygen and came to before the plane made an emergency landing, general manager Kyle Dubas said, per Adam Gretz of PensBurgh, and the Penguins put him on injured reserve. Dan Kingerski of Pittsburgh Hockey Now reports that he returns Thursday.
Kingerski also reported from Wednesday's practice that Samuel Girard was a full-contact participant for a second straight day and that Egor Chinakhov is expected back. Evgeni Malkin missed Saturday's game with an illness, per PittsburghPenguins.com, and was at Wednesday's practice, where by Kingerski's account Kindel skated between him and Chinakhov. Bryan Rust was hurt in the Oct. 19 game against Utah, per PensBurgh, and is out at least five more weeks with a lower-body injury, per Pittsburgh Hockey Now. Treat those lines as projected from practice.
Utah's road goals come from the power play
Utah is 12-for-28 on the power play away from home, 42.9 percent, and 4-for-18 at the Delta Center. At five-on-five on the road, it has been outscored 12-10, by our count of the NHL play-by-play. Nick Schmaltz has five power-play goals and Dylan Guenther four.
The catch is how few chances Pittsburgh hands out. The Penguins have been shorthanded 2.58 times a game, and only Vegas and New Jersey have been shorthanded less often. At home it's 11 times in five games. Utah has averaged four power plays a game on the road, and Thursday it should get two, maybe three. Pittsburgh's kill is ninth in the league at 83.9 percent for the season, which makes the 11-for-11 at home a good kill on a good run.
Utah's side of the box
Utah has been shorthanded 46 times in 13 games, 3.54 a game, tied for fourth-most in the NHL, where the league average is 3.22. Most of that jump came Tuesday, when Utah was shorthanded seven times against Minnesota (through Oct. 22, Utah was at 3.27). Whatever the cause, Utah is 3-4-0 when it's shorthanded four or more times and 5-1-0 when it's three or fewer. Its kill is 29th at 67.4 percent and has allowed 15 power-play goals, second-most in the league.
Pittsburgh's power play went 2-for-2 in Salt Lake, with Erik Karlsson and Rickard Rakell scoring. At home it's 2-for-15. Karlsson leads the Penguins with 12 points, 11 of them assists. Sidney Crosby's 1,111th career assist, on Saturday, tied Ray Bourque for the most with one franchise, per the Associated Press. His next one is the record, and we'd rather it not come on a Utah penalty.
Goalies and lineup
Neither team had named a starter when we wrote this on Wednesday night, and the Mammoth PR game notes for Thursday weren't up. Karel Vejmelka has started the last three games and 10 of 13. He's 6-4-0 with a 3.13 goals-against average and an .877 save percentage by the shots and goals the NHL lists (229 saves on 261; NHL.com shows .881 because of its Oct. 24 save count). Sebastian Cossa is 2-1-0 and .820 (41 of 50), and his last start was against Pittsburgh. There's no back-to-back on this trip, so our guess, with no report to go on, is Vejmelka.
For Pittsburgh, Silovs has started three straight and is 5-3-0 with a 2.87 average and an .890 save percentage. Sergei Murashov is 0-3-1, 3.50 and .883. Gretz expects Silovs: "You want to see Murashov play, but after the past two games Silovs played it would be tough to take him out right now," he wrote for PensBurgh on Monday.
Utah is without Michael Carcone (upper body, injured reserve) and John Marino (upper body, week-to-week), per the Mammoth's week-ahead story on NHL.com. Neither dressed on Tuesday.
Our pick
Utah 3, Pittsburgh 2. We expect two or three Utah power plays, and a unit scoring 43 percent of the time on the road should get one. Eleven kills in five home games is a small sample next to Pittsburgh's 83.9 percent for the season, and the season number is the one we trust. If five-on-five comes out about even, that one goal decides it. The recap will count both halves: Utah's power-play goals, and how many times Utah was shorthanded.
We're wrong if Utah is shorthanded four or more times again. That's a 3-4-0 team with a 29th-ranked kill, and Pittsburgh's power play has already scored twice on it in one game.
Tusks up.
Sources: NHL.com standings, team, goalie and penalty-kill stats, box scores and play-by-play (home and road splits, power plays by game, goals by strength and goalie save totals are our counts from the NHL's data), NHL.com game center, Mammoth PR game notes, Utah Mammoth: the week ahead, PittsburghPenguins.com: Musings after Nashville, Pittsburgh Hockey Now: Penguins close to activating three, PensBurgh: the week ahead, PensBurgh: Dubas's Kindel update, the Associated Press via La Nación, our Oct. 19 preview, our Oct. 19 recap, our Oct. 27 recap.