{"id":600826,"date":"2026-04-11T21:49:09","date_gmt":"2026-04-11T21:49:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/600826\/"},"modified":"2026-04-11T21:49:09","modified_gmt":"2026-04-11T21:49:09","slug":"crosby-penguins-stars-sit-for-what-could-be-ovechkins-final-pittsburgh-visit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/600826\/","title":{"rendered":"Crosby, Penguins stars sit for what could be Ovechkin\u2019s final Pittsburgh visit"},"content":{"rendered":"

PITTSBURGH \u2014 Alex Ovechkin will be on the ice at PPG Paints Arena on Saturday afternoon. The Pittsburgh Penguins will be, too.<\/p>\n

Absent, however, will be Sidney Crosby, the other half of one of the league\u2019s greatest individual rivalries<\/a>; Evgeni Malkin, perhaps the second-greatest Russian player of all time; Erik Karlsson, possibly the best defenseman of his generation; and Kris Letang, a key part of the Penguins-Capitals rivalry for nearly two decades.<\/p>\n

The Penguins announced on Saturday morning that all four players are day-to-day and will not be in the lineup for what could be Ovechkin\u2019s final game in Pittsburgh. Also freshly day-to-day for Pittsburgh are first-line winger Bryan Rust, rookie Ben Kindel and first-pair defenseman Parker Wotherspoon.<\/p>\n

Ovechkin announced earlier this week<\/a> that he\u2019s taking time to decide on whether he will return for a 22nd NHL season. The 40-year-old said he\u2019d announce his plans in the summer, and retirement is a very real possibility. That, combined with Washington\u2019s still-alive postseason hopes, added a degree of cach\u00e9 to this weekend\u2019s home-and-home series between the two franchises. A relevant number of fans traveled for the 3 p.m. game, which will be televised nationally in the United States on ABC, and most lower-bowl tickets were reselling for about $300 at the time of the injury announcements.<\/p>\n

Pittsburgh clinching a playoff spot on Thursday, though, appears to have changed the calculus, especially given that Crosby, 38, and Malkin, 39, both recently missed games. The Penguins recalled forwards Ville Koivunen, Rutger McGroarty and Joona Koppanen to help fill out the lineup.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have a lot of guys that have been playing through a lot, and they\u2019re banged up,\u201d Penguins coach Dan Muse said. \u201cRight now, they\u2019re day to day. (We\u2019ll) continue to evaluate and make decisions moving forward.\u201d<\/p>\n

Coach Spencer Carbery said the Penguins\u2019 moves change nothing for\u00a0the Capitals, who need to win their remaining three games and get outside help to close a three-point gap between themselves and the Philadelphia Flyers.<\/p>\n

\u201cI can see (how Pittsburgh\u2019s lineup would be disappointing) for the fan base and the viewership on TV, but for us, we just got to find a way to get two points. That\u2019s it,\u201d Carbery said. \u201cIt\u2019s not like, all of a sudden, their systems are going to change because four guys are out of the lineup. You\u2019re gonna see a lot of the same things that we\u2019ve prepared for that the Pittsburgh Penguins have done at a high level this year. We\u2019ve got to stay focused on that, even if (Crosby) isn\u2019t in the lineup and there\u2019s some different parts that are dressing tonight.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re in desperation mode, as we have been over the last couple of months, so that won\u2019t change. (Today) we just need to put a real quality performance on display.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"PITTSBURGH \u2014 Alex Ovechkin will be on the ice at PPG Paints Arena on Saturday afternoon. The Pittsburgh…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":600827,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[556],"tags":[64,63,575,4785,85,4791],"class_list":{"0":"post-600826","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-nhl","11":"tag-pittsburgh-penguins","12":"tag-sports","13":"tag-washington-capitals"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/600826","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=600826"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/600826\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/600827"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=600826"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=600826"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=600826"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}