Game Preview: Pittsburgh Penguins @ New York Rangers 2/7/2025

A potentially Crosby-less Penguin team heads to the Big Apple

Who: Pittsburgh Penguins (22-24-9, 53 points, 7th place Metropolitan Division) @ New York Rangers (26-23-4, 56 points, 6th place Metropolitan Division)

When: 7 p.m. ET

How to Watch: Broadcasting on SportsNet Pittsburgh and MSGSN locally, nationally televised game on NHL Network

Pens’ Path Ahead: After tonight there’s one more game to go before the 4 Nations break. The Pens play in Philadelphia tomorrow night (7pm start) and then the players not selected to play in that event get 10 days fully off hockey to go find warmer locales and get in a vacation. The team will eventually reconvene and get a few practices in before the schedule restarts back on Sat. Feb 22nd and the Washington Capitals come to the ‘Burgh.

Opponent Track: The Rangers are all over the map, hoping now their arrow is pointing back up. This is the third game of three in a row at home, they’ve won the previous two (4-2 over Vegas on Sunday, then 3-2 against Boston on Wednesday). They lost three-straight games prior to this current winning streak. Up and down and around they’ve gone as of late. The Rangers play tomorrow night in Columbus before their break starts, so maybe b-2-b considerations figure into goaltender use today?

Season Series: It hasn’t gone well for Pittsburgh against NYR. The Pens hosted on opening night and took a 6-0 beatdown loss that set the tone for the season. The Rangers won the second meeting 4-2 at their home. After tonight’s game the divisional rivals will meet one more time this season on Feb. 23rd.

Hidden Stat: Pittsburgh/NYR has been incredibly even in recent times. Over the last 33 regular season matchups, the Penguins have won 17 games, the Rangers have won 16.

Hidden Stat II: Longtime Islander Anthony Beauvillier has had a little extra up his sleeve against the Rangers. From the Pens: “Anthony Beauvillier has 25 points (13G-12A) in 32 career games against New York. It’s the most goals and points he’s recorded against any one team.” Beauvillier has no points vs NYR in two games with Pittsburgh, however.

Getting to know the Rangers

Projected lines

FORWARDS

Artemi Panarin – J.T. Miller – Mika Zibanejad

Reilly Smith – Vincent Trocheck – Alexis Lafreniere

Chris Kreider – Jonny Brodzinski – Will Cuylle

Jimmy Vesey – Sam Carrick – Matt Rempe

DEFENSEMEN

Ryan Lindgren / Adam Fox

K’Andre Miller / Will Borgen

Zac Jones / Braden Schneider

Goalies: Igor Shesterkin and Jonathan Quick

Scratches: Arthur Kaliyev, Urho Vaakanainen

IR: Adam Edstrom

—The Rangers have had so much turmoil this year. There was the whole well-documented drama with Jacob Trouba getting dealt at the same time Chris Kreider and Mika Zibanejad were listed very publicly as a trade options earlier in the season. Ryan Lindgren has also heavily been involved in trade speculation, as were Filip Chytil and Kaapo Kakko (the latter two having been dealt away). Star goalie Igor Shesterkin played a little hardball in contract negotiations before agreeing to extend at a record cost for a goalie. Young defenseman Zac Jones was a healthy scratch from Dec. 23rd until just last game and said he was “rotting away” with the team, and is believed to have permission to seek a trade through his agent. Jimmy Vesey said he was “kind of dying” with frequent scratches of his own.

—One player who isn’t disgruntled is Vincent Trocheck, who is loving life after being united professionally with long-time friend and fellow Pittsburgh Hornets alum J.T. Miller.

Player stats

(via hockeydb)

—Sideshow performer Matt Rempe only has one fight in his last ten games (coming a few weeks ago against Montreal), the odds of a tilt against Imama have to be pretty high though.

—On the surface Panarin’s production is still good, but more and more his attention to detail and defensive play is lacking. He got called out for it recently by the Rangers’ own broadcast team! Getting Miller back has been a jolt for Panarin (2G+3A in the last two games), surely all have to be hoping his play improves with the shakeup.

And now for the Pens

Projected lines (from yesterday’s practice)

FORWARDS

Anthony Beauvillier – Rickard Rakell – Bryan Rust

Michael Bunting – Cody Glass – Danton Heinen

Matt Nieto – Kevin Hayes – Philip Tomasino

Boko Imama – Blake Lizotte – Noel Acciari

DEFENSEMEN

P.O. Joseph / Kris Letang

Matt Grzelcyk / Erik Karlsson

Ryan Graves / Vincent Desharnais

Goalies: Alex Nedeljkovic and Joel Blomqvist

Potential Scratches: Sidney Crosby (undisclosed upper body injury), Ryan Shea

IR: Evgeni Malkin (week-to-week knee injury)

—Well, it’s not a pretty sight for a Penguin team down both Crosby and Malkin. Shades if 2002-04 Pittsburgh teams when Mario Lemieux was injured, one might even say.

—Crosby did skate for a decent amount of time before yesterday’s practice, but it was noticed that he did not shoot the puck very often and without much effort when he did. It hasn’t been clarified as to if it’s a wrist, elbow or shoulder issue hindering him after getting “tangled up” in the captain’s own words during the Devils. Josh Yohe from The Athletic mentioned, “there is optimism around the Penguins that he will play in the 4 Nations tournament. Whether he will be 100 percent remains to be seen”. It’s unknown at press time if Crosby will play tonight.

—Rakell worked at center yesterday, a position he has some experience at. Rakell was drafted as a center way back in 2011 and even played the position in the NHL during his first few seasons in Anaheim in the 2013-16 range. He’s shifted to wing almost exclusively since 2018 but should have enough muscle memory and experience as a short-term option to man the middle if needed. Right now it looks like it will be needed at least for a day or two with Malkin on the shelf and Crosby’s status in extreme uncertainty.

Boys joined by more boys

It’ll be a brief “dad’s trip” for the Pens this year tonight in New York and then they’re taking their guests to Philadelphia for whatever reason. Hopefully no trades or waiving players this time!

Ned shining

Alex Nedeljkovic has been the go-to guy since Tristan Jarry got waived. The Pens have fed him a heavy workload for a reason — Nedelkovic has played well and earned the right to start a lot lately. From the team:

Goaltender Alex Nedeljkovic has been heating up over the last couple weeks, ranking fourth in the NHL in save percentage since Jan. 17 (min. 5 GP):

Highest Save Percentage Since Jan. 17 (min. 5 GP)

Player GP SV%

Ilya Sorokin 7 .960
John Gibson 5 .944
Andrei Vasilevskiy 6 .940
Alex Nedeljkovic 7 .936
Sergei Bobrovsky 5 .931