{"id":69221,"date":"2025-12-24T05:53:14","date_gmt":"2025-12-24T05:53:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/69221\/"},"modified":"2025-12-24T05:53:14","modified_gmt":"2025-12-24T05:53:14","slug":"penguins-game-36-early-start-lines-notes-how-to-watch-vs-maple-leafs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/69221\/","title":{"rendered":"Penguins Game 36, Early Start; Lines, Notes, & How to Watch vs. Maple Leafs"},"content":{"rendered":"

TORONTO \u2014 The Pittsburgh Penguins<\/a> (15-11-9) have a terrible recent history against the Toronto Maple Leafs (15-15-5), and especially in Toronto. The Penguins were embarrassed 7-0 on Dec. 17, 2023, and most recently blew a 3-0 third period lead on Nov. 3. They visit Scotiabank Arena for the second and final time this season Tuesday in the final game before the NHL holiday break. <\/p>\n

Note the early start time\u2013the puck drops just after 4 p.m. when the giant Canadian flag unfurls across the lower bowl, and Natalie Morris delivers a pair of National Anthems. <\/p>\n

The Penguins have lost four straight (0-3-1) at Scotiabank Arena, but the Penguins received permission from the NHL and will wear their home yellow third jerseys. The team is 2-1-1 in the yellow. <\/p>\n

Toronto is a team in disarray, with a coach on an increasingly hot seat. Monday, the team fired assistant coach Marc Savard, and all eyes are now fixated on head coach Craig Berube, whom some believe has lost the room.<\/p>\n

Toronto has lost six of their last eight games (2-4-2), with just one regulation win in that time. Star forward William Nylander has been shuffled around the lineup, getting demoted to the third line as part of a message from Berube, and center Auston Matthews has only 14 goals.<\/p>\n

Despite a prodigious amount of talent throughout the Maple Leafs\u2019 lineup, the Toronto power play ranks worst in the league at an unsustainably bad 13.3%. <\/p>\n

Surprisingly, goaltending has been the only bright spot for Toronto as organizational goalie 24-year-old Dennis Hildeby<\/a> has stepped forward from the shadows of toiling in the AHL to post a .911 save percentage in 13 games. Joseph Wall is the other healthy goalie on the roster and has posted a .925 save percentage in 10 games. <\/p>\n

Regardless of player performance, the bright lights of the Toronto media glare are transfixed upon Berube, and daily chatter inches the coach to the end of his tenure, during just his second season. <\/p>\n

The Penguins\u2019 outlook is again upbeat after finally breaking their eight-game winless string Sunday with the rarest of wins for the team: A shootout victory. The Penguins beat the Montreal Canadiens<\/a> 4-3 at PPG Paints Arena. <\/p>\n

The game will be remembered as the day Sidney Crosby<\/a> surpassed Mario Lemieux<\/a> as the team\u2019s all-time leading scorer, notching his 1724th career point when he tallied an assist on Rickard Rakell\u2019s first-period power-play goal. <\/p>\n

The Penguins players leaped from the bench and mobbed Crosby on the ice, and moments later, a hush came over the crowd as a video tribute from Lemieux himself played. Even the players provided rapt attention to Le Magnifique\u2019s message. <\/p>\n

Crosby scored the first goal of the game, his 20th of the season. Noel Acciari scored the third goal when he chased down defenseman Kris Letang\u2019s<\/a> three-zone lob pass and sniped a top-corner wrister past Montreal goalie Jakub Dobes. <\/p>\n

The win put the Penguins back in the playoff conversation. They trail the New Jersey Devils for the second wild-card spot by two points and have one game in hand. <\/p>\n

However, the entire Eastern Conference is .500 or better, so a slide in either direction can have big consequences. <\/p>\n

How to Watch<\/p>\n

TV: TNT<\/p>\n

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

Expected Penguins Lines<\/p>\n

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

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

Rutger McGroarty-Ben Kindel<\/a>-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

Special Teams<\/p>\n

Penguins\u2019 power play: 29.6%, 3rd. Penguins penalty kill: 80.8%, 18th.<\/p>\n

Maple Leafs power play: 13.3%, 32nd. Maple Leafs penalty kill: 83.2%, 6th.<\/p>\n

Penguins Game Notes<\/p>\n

Bryan Rust (466) is one point shy of surpassing Jake Guentzel (466) for sole possession of the 11th most points in franchise history.<\/p>\n

If goalie Stuart Skinner<\/a> plays today, it will be his 200th NHL game. He was the Edmonton Oilers\u2019 third-round pick in 2017. <\/p>\n

After passing Lemieux, Crosby is in eighth place on the NHL\u2019s all-time scoring list and third all-time in points for one franchise. He trails Steve Yzerman, who tallied 1755 points with the Detroit Red Wings, by 31 points for second. <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Connor Clifton is one game shy of 400 career regular-season games. Clifton, who was drafted in the fifth round (133rd overall) in the 2013 NHL Draft, would become the 39th member of his draft class to reach 400 games.<\/p>\n

Erik Karlsson enters tonight\u2019s game with points in six of his last eight games (2G-6A) and has 11 points (2-9-11) in 11 games in December.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tTags: Penguins game<\/a> Penguins lines<\/a> Penguins starting goalie<\/a> Pittsburgh Penguins<\/a> toronto maple leafs<\/a> <\/p>\n

Categorized: Penguins Pregame<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"TORONTO \u2014 The Pittsburgh Penguins (15-11-9) have a terrible recent history against the Toronto Maple Leafs (15-15-5), and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":69222,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[6617,5979,18595,73,75,74,1067,10176],"class_list":{"0":"post-69221","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-pittsburgh","8":"tag-penguins-game","9":"tag-penguins-lines","10":"tag-penguins-starting-goalie","11":"tag-pittsburgh","12":"tag-pittsburgh-headlines","13":"tag-pittsburgh-news","14":"tag-pittsburgh-penguins","15":"tag-toronto-maple-leafs"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69221","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=69221"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69221\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/69222"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=69221"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=69221"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=69221"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}