{"id":66360,"date":"2025-12-20T21:37:10","date_gmt":"2025-12-20T21:37:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/66360\/"},"modified":"2025-12-20T21:37:10","modified_gmt":"2025-12-20T21:37:10","slug":"lines-goalies-how-to-watch-vs-canadiens","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/66360\/","title":{"rendered":"Lines, Goalies, & How to Watch vs. Canadiens"},"content":{"rendered":"

MONTREAL \u2013\u2013 A seven-game winless streak has engulfed the Pittsburgh Penguins <\/a>(14-10-9). The team has been stuck on 14 wins since Dec. 4, and has squandered a half dozen leads since then. With the fabled hot dogs and history awaiting, the Penguins visit the Montreal Canadiens (18-12-4) at Centre Bell. <\/p>\n

The puck drops just after 7 p.m. <\/p>\n

UPDATE: Coach Dan Muse juggled his lines at the morning skate, with some significant changes. <\/p>\n

The Penguins trailed early and faced a 3-0 deficit before finding their game Thursday in a 4-0 loss to the Ottawa Senators. A pair of unusually bad calls victimized the Penguins. First was a tripping penalty against goalie Arturs Silovs <\/a>in the first 90 seconds of the game that led to an Ottawa power play goal by Brady Tkachuk. Then in the middle of the second period, the Penguins\u2019 Kris Letang<\/a> had a goal taken away by an indefensibly bad goaltender interference call and review. <\/p>\n

Silovs was otherwise good for the Penguins, perhaps his best start in the last 10 games. He stopped 22 of 25 shots, but faced 25 scoring chances. <\/p>\n

Montreal completed a late-night trade on Friday, just before the holiday roster freeze, acquiring disgruntled center Philip Danault from the LA Kings. The move shored up Montreal\u2019s lineup, which has been short on centers. <\/p>\n

It\u2019s unknown if Danault will be in a bleu, blanc, et rouge sweater Saturday, but there is a buzz around the Canadiens. <\/p>\n

Make sure to visit our colleague Marc Dumont at Montreal Hockey Now<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Montreal is 3-1-1 in their last five games, beginning with a solid drubbing of the Penguins on Dec. 11 at PPG Paints Arena. Montreal smoked the Penguins behind rookie goalie Jacob Fowler<\/a>, who made his NHL debut. <\/p>\n

Fowler hasn\u2019t won since, and is now 1-1-1 with an .885 save percentage. Former No. 1 goalie Sam Montembeault is finishing a two-week conditioning assignment in the AHL. <\/p>\n

In keeping a goalie rotation, Stuart Skinner is expected to start for the Penguins. <\/p>\n

At the morning skate, co<\/p>\n

How to Watch<\/p>\n

TV: SportsNet Pittsburgh <\/p>\n

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

Expected Penguins Lines (UPDATED)<\/p>\n

Tommy Novak-Sidney Crosby-Bryan Rust<\/p>\n

Anthony Mantha-Rickard Rakell-Justin Brazeau<\/p>\n

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

Connor Dewar-Kevin Hayes-Noel Acciari<\/p>\n

Defense<\/p>\n

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

Brett Kulak-Kris Letang<\/p>\n

Ryan Shea-Connor Clifton<\/p>\n

Goalie: Stuart Skinner, expected<\/p>\n

Expected Canadiens Lines<\/p>\n

Cole Caufield<\/a>\u2013Nick Suzuki<\/a>-Zachary Bolduc<\/p>\n

Juraj Slafkovsky-Oliver Kapanen-Ivan Demidov<\/p>\n

Alex Texier-Jake Evans-Brendan Gallagher<\/p>\n

Joe Veleno-Owen Beck-Josh Anderson<\/p>\n

Defense<\/p>\n

Jayden Struble-Noah Dobson<\/p>\n

Lane Hutson-Alex Carrier<\/p>\n

Arber Xhekaj-Adam Engstrom<\/p>\n

Goaltender: Jacob Fowler, expected<\/p>\n

Special Teams<\/p>\n

Penguins\u2019 power play: 30.4%, 3rd. Penguins penalty kill: 81.4%, 15th.<\/p>\n

Canadiens power play: 25.5%, 6th. Senators\u2019 penalty kill: 77.3%, 25th.<\/p>\n

Penguins Game Notes<\/p>\n

The Penguins have wins in six of their last seven against the Canadiens (6-1-0) dating back to Dec. 13, 2023, and have points in 11 consecutive visits to the Bell Centre (8-0-3). <\/p>\n

Anthony Mantha, a Longueuil, Quebec native, has 19 points (11-8-19) in 24 career games against the Canadiens, and four game-winning goals. <\/p>\n

Sidney Crosby<\/a> remains one point shy of tying Mario Lemieux for the Penguins\u2019 all-time leading scorer (1723) and eighth on the NHL all-time list. <\/p>\n

Erik Karlsson has points in five of his last six games (2-5-7) and has 10 points (2G-8A) in nine games in December.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tTags: canadiens game<\/a> canadiens lines<\/a> Montreal Canadiens<\/a> Penguins lines<\/a> Penguins starting goalie<\/a> Pittsburgh Penguins<\/a> <\/p>\n

Categorized: Penguins Pregame<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"MONTREAL \u2013\u2013 A seven-game winless streak has engulfed the Pittsburgh Penguins (14-10-9). The team has been stuck on…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":66361,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[35263,35264,16601,5979,18595,73,75,74,1067],"class_list":{"0":"post-66360","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-pittsburgh","8":"tag-canadiens-game","9":"tag-canadiens-lines","10":"tag-montreal-canadiens","11":"tag-penguins-lines","12":"tag-penguins-starting-goalie","13":"tag-pittsburgh","14":"tag-pittsburgh-headlines","15":"tag-pittsburgh-news","16":"tag-pittsburgh-penguins"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66360","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=66360"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66360\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/66361"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=66360"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=66360"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=66360"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}