{"id":314388,"date":"2025-11-28T13:55:08","date_gmt":"2025-11-28T13:55:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/314388\/"},"modified":"2025-11-28T13:55:08","modified_gmt":"2025-11-28T13:55:08","slug":"game-preview-pittsburgh-penguins-columbus-blue-jackets-11-28-25","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/314388\/","title":{"rendered":"Game Preview: Pittsburgh Penguins @ Columbus Blue Jackets 11\/28\/25"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">Who: Pittsburgh Penguins (11-6-5, 27 points, 5th place Metropolitan Division) @ Columbus Blue Jackets (11-9-4, 26 points, 7th place Metropolitan Division)<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">How to Watch: Broadcast locally Sportsnet Pittsburgh and FDSNOH, nationally on NHL Network<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">Pens\u2019 Path Ahead: The Pens return home to play Toronto tomorrow night before embarking on a three-game road trip next week that will have stops in Philadelphia (Monday), Tampa (Thursday) and Dallas (a week from Sunday).<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">Opponent Track: Columbus has lost their last three games, though two of those have come past regulation. It hasn\u2019t been the best five-game stretch for the Blue Jackets, who are 1-2-2 in the last 10 days.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">Season Series: The Blue Jackets claimed the first game between these teams in a shootout. Tonight is round two for PIT\/CBJ this year. They\u2019ll play two more times after this on January 4th back in Ohio and then January 17th in Pittsburgh.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">Hidden Stat: Columbus hasn\u2019t won a game by more than one goal since October 29th\u2026.Most of their games have been extremely close, needing<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">overtime in seven of their last 10 games.<\/p>\n<p>Getting to know the Blue Jackets<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">Dmitri Voronkov &#8211; Adam Fantilli &#8211; Kent Johnson<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">Luca Pinelli &#8211; Sean Monahan &#8211; Cole Sillinger<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">Miles Wood &#8211; Charlie Coyle &#8211; Isac Lundestrom<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">Zach Aston Reese &#8211; Brendan Gaunce &#8211; Yegor Chinakhov<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">Zach Werenski \/ Ivan Provorov<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">Denton Mateychuk \/ Damon Severson<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">Brendan Smith \/ Dante Fabbro<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">Goalies: Jet Greaves and Elvis Merzlikins<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">Potential scratches: Mathieu Olivier (injury), Kirill Marchenko (day to day injury), Jake Christansen<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">Injured Reserve: Erik Gudbrandson, Boone Jenner<\/p>\n<p>Tough break for Marchenko, who got hurt during the morning skate in Washington and was expected to be out <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/Aportzline\/status\/1993786267994144862\" rel=\"nofollow\">for tonight\u2019s game<\/a>.In better news, Werenski was injured in that game against the Capitals but was able to come back and play the next game against Toronto, looks like CBJ dodged a bullet to avoid an injury to one of their most irreplaceable players.Chinakov, a 2020 first round pick, hasn\u2019t found a huge role and has requested a trade. Columbus doesn\u2019t look in a huge hurry to honor the request but it might eventually get in that direction.<a class=\"_1eezmj01\" href=\"https:\/\/platform.pensburgh.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/123\/2025\/11\/cbj.jpg?quality=90&amp;strip=all&amp;crop=0,18.849426563078,100,62.301146873844\" data-pswp-height=\"561.3333333333334\" data-pswp-width=\"842\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer nofollow noopener\"><img alt=\"\" data-chromatic=\"ignore\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" data-nimg=\"fill\" class=\"w91vxg0\" style=\"position:absolute;height:100%;width:100%;left:0;top:0;right:0;bottom:0;color:transparent;background-size:cover;background-position:50% 50%;background-repeat:no-repeat;background-image:url(&quot;data:image\/svg+xml;charset=utf-8,%3Csvg xmlns='http:\/\/www.w3.org\/2000\/svg' %3E%3Cfilter id='b' color-interpolation-filters='sRGB'%3E%3CfeGaussianBlur stdDeviation='20'\/%3E%3CfeColorMatrix values='1 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 100 -1' result='s'\/%3E%3CfeFlood x='0' y='0' width='100%25' height='100%25'\/%3E%3CfeComposite operator='out' in='s'\/%3E%3CfeComposite in2='SourceGraphic'\/%3E%3CfeGaussianBlur stdDeviation='20'\/%3E%3C\/filter%3E%3Cimage width='100%25' height='100%25' x='0' y='0' preserveAspectRatio='none' style='filter: url(%23b);' href='data:image\/png;base64,iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAAAEAAAABCAQAAAC1HAwCAAAAC0lEQVR42mN8+R8AAtcB6oaHtZcAAAAASUVORK5CYII='\/%3E%3C\/svg%3E&quot;)\"   src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/cbj.jpg\"\/><\/a>Columbus ranks just 24th in the NHL so far this season with 2.79 goals\/game, and their top-four goal scorers (Fantilli, Voronkov, Werenski and Markchenko) have created over 50% of the team\u2019s goal total (34 of 67).Gotta be at least a little disappointing that Monahan only has two goals and 10 points in 24 games this season after putting up 19 goals and 57 points in 54 games last year.Many were ready to see what Greaves could do in his first full season in the NHL, he hasn\u2019t disappointed yet. Merzlikins plays to about the same level every year, Columbus now might have found a goalie that they can rely on.<a class=\"_1eezmj01\" href=\"https:\/\/platform.pensburgh.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/123\/2025\/11\/cbjpens.jpg?quality=90&amp;strip=all&amp;crop=0.76271186440677,0,98.474576271186,100\" data-pswp-height=\"581\" data-pswp-width=\"464.80000000000007\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer nofollow noopener\"><img alt=\"\" data-chromatic=\"ignore\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" data-nimg=\"fill\" class=\"w91vxg0\" style=\"position:absolute;height:100%;width:100%;left:0;top:0;right:0;bottom:0;color:transparent;background-size:cover;background-position:50% 50%;background-repeat:no-repeat;background-image:url(&quot;data:image\/svg+xml;charset=utf-8,%3Csvg xmlns='http:\/\/www.w3.org\/2000\/svg' %3E%3Cfilter id='b' color-interpolation-filters='sRGB'%3E%3CfeGaussianBlur stdDeviation='20'\/%3E%3CfeColorMatrix values='1 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 100 -1' result='s'\/%3E%3CfeFlood x='0' y='0' width='100%25' height='100%25'\/%3E%3CfeComposite operator='out' in='s'\/%3E%3CfeComposite in2='SourceGraphic'\/%3E%3CfeGaussianBlur stdDeviation='20'\/%3E%3C\/filter%3E%3Cimage width='100%25' height='100%25' x='0' y='0' preserveAspectRatio='none' style='filter: url(%23b);' href='data:image\/png;base64,iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAAAEAAAABCAQAAAC1HAwCAAAAC0lEQVR42mN8+R8AAtcB6oaHtZcAAAAASUVORK5CYII='\/%3E%3C\/svg%3E&quot;)\"   src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/cbjpens.jpg\"\/><\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">Columbus isn\u2019t good at much, besides keeping games close and getting them to overtime more often than not. There\u2019s some value in that for the standings. The Blue Jackets only have six regulation wins in the 24 games this season, but they do have 11 wins overall &#8211; almost doubling up their win total via extra time. Overall, CBJ is 2-3 in games decided in OT and 3-1 in the shootout for a 5-4 overall record in games that go past the scheduled 60 minutes.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">Connor Dewar &#8211; Sidney Crosby &#8211; Bryan Rust<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">Kevin Hayes &#8211; Evgeni Malkin &#8211; Anthony Mantha<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">Ville Koivunen &#8211; Tristan Broz &#8211; Tommy Novak<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">Joona Koppanen &#8211; Blake Lizotte &#8211; Danton Heinen<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">Parker Wotherspoon \/ Erik Karlsson<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">Ryan Graves \/ Connor Clifton<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">Goalies: Arturs Silovs and Tristan Jarry<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">Potential Scratches: Ben Kindel (development plan), Matt Dumba, Harrison Brunicke (AHL rehab assignment)<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">IR: Filip Hallander, Justin Brazeau, Rickard Rakell, Caleb Jones, Noel Acciari<\/p>\n<p>The Pens were off yesterday following their big win over Buffalo on Wednesday night.It\u2019ll be interesting to see if the goalie rotation continues. One on hand, you\u2019d think it would settle back in to the successful groove the Pens were in earlier in the year when they rotated Jarry and Silovs evenly. On the other hand, Jarry was awesome on Wednesday and Silovs got pulled in his last outing. There\u2019s games today and tomorrow, so both should be getting the opportunity to play soon enough, just a bit intriguing to see how the team will choose to handle the ordering for an important divisional matchup against a team the Pens could be competing with for positioning throughout the season.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Who: Pittsburgh Penguins (11-6-5, 27 points, 5th place Metropolitan Division) @ Columbus Blue Jackets (11-9-4, 26 points, 7th&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":314389,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[556],"tags":[64,63,135649,575,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-314388","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nhl","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-game-preview","11":"tag-nhl","12":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/314388","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=314388"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/314388\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/314389"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=314388"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=314388"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=314388"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}