{"id":60335,"date":"2025-12-13T22:12:20","date_gmt":"2025-12-13T22:12:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/60335\/"},"modified":"2025-12-13T22:12:20","modified_gmt":"2025-12-13T22:12:20","slug":"lines-goalies-how-to-watch-vs-sharks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/60335\/","title":{"rendered":"Lines, Goalies, & How to Watch vs. Sharks"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Pittsburgh Penguins\u2019<\/a> (14-8-7) goaltending situation underwent a major change Friday when the team traded Tristan Jarry and Sam Poulin to the Edmonton Oilers for their struggling goalie Stuart Skinner<\/a> and defenseman Brett Kulak (and a 2029 second-round pick). After a rough loss Thursday, the Penguins need to reverse course as they host the San Jose Sharks (15-14-3) Saturday.<\/p>\n

The puck drops just after 3 p.m. when Nicole Jenkins delivers the National Anthem.<\/p>\n

The FanDuel NHL odds<\/a> have the Penguins as solid favorites (-170) on the Moneyline, but the Sharks are a good bet to cover the 1.5 Puckline (180). Props and futures bets<\/a> are also available, as the Penguins remain +25000 to win the Stanley Cup.<\/p>\n

The Penguins\u2019 recent hard luck became a bad performance Thursday when they lost to the Montreal Canadiens<\/a> 4-2. The team was never in the game, struggling to connect on passes and generate momentum, until the final 10 minutes of the game.<\/p>\n

Montreal rookie goalie Jacob Fowler made his NHL debut and stonewalled the Penguins, who produced a lot of shots without a lot of good scoring chances. Fowler stopped 36 of 38 shots for the win, while the Penguins groused amongst themselves at their poor performance. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt was horrible,\u201d Kris Letang said. <\/p>\n

Bryan Rust and Erik Karlsson scored for the Penguins. The team is currently in the second wild card spot with 35 points. They are tied with Montreal and the New Jersey Devils, but have one and two games in hand, respectively.<\/p>\n

The San Jose Sharks have won two of their last games (1-2-1) and are merely two points behind the Penguins and have one more win. The rebuilding franchise lead by 2024 first overall pick Macklin Celebrini and Will Smith is now a competitive team. <\/p>\n

Celebrini has factored into more than 49% of the Sharks\u2019 offense, and leads the team with 44 points and 15 goals. <\/p>\n

The game will also be the return of Alex Nedeljkovic<\/a> to Pittsburgh. The goalie spent the last two seasons with the Penguins. This season, \u201cNed\u201d has appeared in 15 games with a 5-6-2 record and a .902 save percentage.<\/p>\n

The Sharks beat the Toronto Maple Leafs in overtime Thursday, 3-2. They tied the game with an extra attacker when John Klingberg blasted a shot through traffic with 1:25 remaining. Then, Alex Wennberg<\/a> scored the OT winner, which stood after an offside review.<\/p>\n

Nedeljkovic earned the win. <\/p>\n

San Jose also beat the Carolina Hurricanes on their five-game road trip. Saturday is the final leg. San Jose is in the second wild card spot in the Western Conference. <\/p>\n

**The Penguins activated Rickard Rakell Friday. Coach Dan Muse stopped short of saying he would play, but seemed encouraged by Rakell\u2019s progress and performance in practice.<\/p>\n

**(UPDATE) The Penguins will not have Stuart Skinner and Brett Kulak in the lineup Saturday. Arturs Silovs<\/a> will start in goal, but both Skinner and Kulak are going through the Visa process. <\/p>\n

The Penguins recalled Sergei Murashov on an emergency basis.<\/p>\n

How to Watch<\/p>\n

TV: SportsNet Pittsburgh, NHL Network<\/p>\n

Radio: 105.9 The X<\/p>\n

Possible Penguins Lines<\/p>\n

Rickard Rakell-Sidney Crosby-Bryan Rust<\/p>\n

Anthony Mantha-Tommy Novak-Justin Brazeau<\/p>\n

Rutger McGroarty-Ben Kindel-Ville Koivunen<\/p>\n

Connor Dewar-Danton Heinen-Noel Acciari<\/p>\n

Defense<\/p>\n

Parker Wotherspoon-Erik Karlsson<\/p>\n

Ryan Shea-Kris Letang<\/p>\n

Brett Kulak-Connor Clifton<\/p>\n

Goalie: Arturs Silovs, Expected<\/p>\n

Expected Sharks Lines, per San Jose Hockey Now<\/p>\n

Follow Sheng Peng<\/a> and San Jose Hockey Now for the flip side reporting.<\/p>\n

Collin Graf-Macklin Celebrini-Will Smith<\/p>\n

William Eklund-Alexander Wennberg-Tyler Toffoli<\/p>\n

Jeff Skinner-Ty Dellandrea-Philipp Kurashev<\/p>\n

Barclay Goodrow-Adam Gaudette-Ryan Reaves<\/p>\n

Defense<\/p>\n

Mario Ferraro-Shakir Mukhamadullin<\/p>\n

Dmitry Orlov-John Klingberg<\/p>\n

Sam Dickinson-Timothy Liljegren<\/p>\n

Goalie: Alex Nedeljkovic, unconfirmed<\/p>\n

Special Teams<\/p>\n

Penguins\u2019 power play: 31.2%, 3rd. Penguins penalty kill: 84.7%, 4th.<\/p>\n

Sharks power play: 18.4%, 19th. Sharks penalty kill: 80%, 18th.<\/p>\n

Penguins Game Notes<\/p>\n

Sidney Crosby<\/a> is four points away from tying Mario Lemieux\u2019s franchise record for points (1723). Tying Lemieux would also mean Crosby tying him for eighth place among the NHL\u2019s all-time scoring leaders.<\/p>\n

The Penguins have wins in seven of their last nine games vs. San Jose, and are
averaging 4.44 goals per game.<\/p>\n

Despite the recent hardships, the Penguins have points in seven of their last nine games (4-2-3). <\/p>\n

Tommy Novak<\/a> has 11 points (6-5-11) in eight career games against the San
Jose Sharks.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tTags: Penguins game<\/a> Penguins lines<\/a> Penguins starting goalie<\/a> Pittsburgh Penguins<\/a> san jose sharks lines<\/a> sharks game<\/a> <\/p>\n

Categorized: Penguins Pregame<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Pittsburgh Penguins\u2019 (14-8-7) goaltending situation underwent a major change Friday when the team traded Tristan Jarry and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":60336,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[6617,5979,18595,73,75,74,1067,32730,32731],"class_list":["post-60335","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-pittsburgh","tag-penguins-game","tag-penguins-lines","tag-penguins-starting-goalie","tag-pittsburgh","tag-pittsburgh-headlines","tag-pittsburgh-news","tag-pittsburgh-penguins","tag-san-jose-sharks-lines","tag-sharks-game"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60335","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=60335"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60335\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/60336"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=60335"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=60335"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=60335"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}