The Pittsburgh Penguins have four games this week while some of their best players are getting close to some more big individual career milestones.
The Pittsburgh Penguins are entering their second week of the 2024-25 season, and so far their first three games have produced a bit of a mixed bag of results.
They have played one really bad game (New York Rangers).
They have played one pretty good game (Detroit Red Wings).
They have played one okay game with some bad luck (Toronto Maple Leafs).
In other words, it has been pretty close to what you might expect for a team that has been mostly average over the past two years.
This week they have four games on the schedule with a road game at Montreal, home games against the Buffalo Sabres and Carolina Hurricanes, then a road game on Sunday at the Winnipeg Jets to start a Western Canada road trip.
There are a couple of big things to watch for this week for the Penguins.
The most significant might be how the goalie workload works out. Joel Blomqvist has started the past two games, and for the most part has looked pretty good. Certianly better than Tristan Jarry looked in his regular season debut. The Blomqvist starts continue a trend that goes back to the end of the 2023-24 season where a healthy Jarry is simply not seeing the ice. He has started just one of the Penguins’ past 16 regular season games and only four of the past 20 games.
The starting goalie on Monday will be a fascinating decision.
Complicating things even more is that regular backup Alex Nedeljkovic is getting closer to a return and could be back at some point this week. The goalie distribution is going to be the storyline to watch.
The other one is that Penguins future Hall of Famers Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin are both still closing in on milestones with a chance to reach them this season.
Crosby remains just one point away from 1,600 for his career and just eight goals away from 600 for his career.
Malkin is just two goals away from 500 for his career.
As for the games themselves, there are some interesting — and tough — matchups here.
Montreal is a fascinating team in that it is lacking in quality depth, but still has some players that can cause headaches. Goalie Sam Montembeault is starting to play like an above average starter, while the Canadiens’ top line of Cole Caufield, Nick Suzuki and Juraj Slafkovsky has been tremendous. Caufield has been especially good with four goals in his first three games this season.
This is the line the Penguins have to stop. The Penguins won all three games against Montreal a year ago, including two beyond regulation in a shootout and also overtime.
The week contiues with a return trip home and two games at PPG Paints arena against the Buffalo Sabres and Carolina Hurricanes.
The Sabres have some impressive young players on paper, but their rebuild has yet to produce results as their playoff drought keeps rolling on and now they have won just one of their first four games this season. The blue line has a ton of talent and potential, and you always have to be aware of Tage Thompson offensively. They also have a goalie duo in Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen and Devon Levi that is pretty good and should be at least an above average duo. Levi has been especially good so far with a .919 save percentage in his first two starts. The Penguins won just one of the three games against Buffalo a year ago.
Then the Hurricanes come to town for the Penguins’ first meeting with them this season. Carolina will be starting a six-game road trip that night and only be playing its third game of the season (while the Penguins will already be playing their sixth game).
Carolina has a lot of new faces on its roster this season after Jake Guentzel, Teuvo Teravainen, Brett Pesce and Brady Skjei all left in free agency. Jack Roslovic, William Carrier, Shayne Gostisbehere and Sean Walker are coming into replace that group. Whether or not they are an upgrade remains to be seen, but the Hurricanes should still be a handful and a tough game. The Penguins have really struggled to handle their speed in recent years, and that could be an issue for them again this week on Friday night.
On Sunday the Penguins start their Western Canada road trip with a road game at the Winnipeg Jets. The big storyline there will be whether or not the Penguins can get the best of one of the league’s best goalies in Connor Hellebuyck. Winnipeg has some really high-end players, and Hellebuyck is the best of the bunch and the player that can completely change a game.
This is not going to be an easy week for the Penguins, and they really need to collect some points here. You would like to see them get wins against Montreal and Buffalo, and if they can get at least a point out of the Carolina and Winnipeg games that would give you five out of a possible eight points for the week. That should be a success for the week.