{"id":84018,"date":"2026-01-11T17:10:44","date_gmt":"2026-01-11T17:10:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/84018\/"},"modified":"2026-01-11T17:10:44","modified_gmt":"2026-01-11T17:10:44","slug":"game-preview-pittsburgh-penguins-boston-bruins-1-11-26","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/84018\/","title":{"rendered":"Game Preview: Pittsburgh Penguins @ Boston Bruins 1\/11\/26"},"content":{"rendered":"

Who: Pittsburgh Penguins (21-13-9, 51 points, 5th place Metropolitan Division) @ Boston Bruins (24-19-2, 50 points, 5th place Atlantic Division)<\/p>\n

How to Watch: Broadcast locally Sportsnet Pittsburgh and NESN, streaming on ESPN+<\/p>\n

Pens\u2019 Path Ahead: The Pens return home next week for games at PPG Paints Arena against Tampa (Tuesday), Philadelphia (Thursday) and Columbus (Saturday).<\/p>\n

Opponent Track: The Bruins put a 10-2 beating on the Rangers yesterday in New York, helping them to a fourth win in the last five games. Before that, Boston had lost six in a row (0-5-1) and prior to that they had won the previous four games. Like many other in the East and NHL at-large, the Bruins are riding the waves of alternating good and bad streaks like that as they make their way through the season.<\/p>\n

Season Series: This is the first PIT\/BOS game of the season. The teams will meet up again in Boston on March 3rd, quickly followed by the Bruins\u2019 only visit to Pittsburgh this season on March 8th for the third and final game.<\/p>\n

Getting to know the Bruins<\/p>\n

Murat Khusnutdinov – Elias Lindholm* – David Pastrnak<\/p>\n

Casey Mittelstadt – Pavel Zacha – Viktor Arvidsson<\/p>\n

Alex Steeves – Fraser Minten – Connor Geekie*<\/p>\n

Tanner Jeannot – Sean Kuraly – Mark Kastelic<\/p>\n

Jonathan Aspirot \/ Charlie McAvoy<\/p>\n

Nikita Zadorov \/ Henri Jokiharju<\/p>\n

Mason Lohrei \/ Andrew Peeke<\/p>\n

Goalies: Joonas Korpisalo (Jeremy Swayman played yesterday)<\/p>\n

Potential scratches: Jeffrey Viel, Michael Eyssimont, Vladislav Kolyachonok<\/p>\n

Injured Reserve: Hampus Lindholm, Jordan Harris<\/p>\n

As is the case coming off a 10-2 win, lots of players riding high lately. Pastranak notched six (count \u2018em, six!) assists. Zacha had a hat trick, Khusnutdinov did him one better with a four-goal game. Minten chipped in 2G+1A.*Geekie and Lindolm both left yesterday\u2019s game early, both are officially gametime decisions<\/a> for today. Geekie had a family emergency that coach Marco Sturm said is \u201call good\u201d now, Lindholm is dealing with a nagging injury.\"\"<\/a>\"\"<\/a>Khusnutdinov, who was involved in the MIN->BOS trade for Justin Brazeau last season, is having a sort Brazeau-esque glow up this season, funny enough for two players in the same deal to both improve their lot significantly this year. The 23-year old only had six goals and 16 points in his first 91 games entering this season, he already has blown by both of those totals already (a five-point game yesterday helps there).Geekie started out red hot, as late as November 29th<\/a> his 20 goals in 27 games to start the season were tied for the league-lead. He\u2019s slowed down since then, and in fact has not scored a goal in nine-straight games going back to December 20th.The Bruins boast the NHL\u2019s two highest penalty minute leaders so far this season between Zadorov (113) and Jeannot (97).<\/p>\n

Key matchup: Pittsburgh offense vs. Boston defense<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The Penguins and Bruins are similar in that both have good power plays, they both finish well, their offensive 5v5 process is strong, their goaltending and penalty kills are similar.<\/p>\n

The big difference of what stands out is when you get to Boston\u2019s 5v5 defensive outputs. That\u2019s the one major weak link involved, the Bruins will give up chances against. Having Lindholm out as one of their top defenders doesn\u2019t help in that regard. It\u2019s the second game in a row for both teams and presumably the B\u2019s will be playing their weaker goalie, they haven\u2019t shown much by way of insulating him. That opens the door for the Penguins to potentially have an edge.<\/p>\n

Tommy Novak – Sidney Crosby – Rickard Rakell<\/p>\n

Ben Kindel – Evgeni Malkin – Yegor Chinakhov<\/p>\n

Anthony Mantha – Kevin Hayes – Justin Brazeau<\/p>\n

Connor Dewar – Blake Lizotte – Noel Acciari<\/p>\n

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

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

Ryan Shea \/ Jack St. Ivany<\/p>\n

Goalies: Stuart Skinner (Arturs Silovs played yesterday)<\/p>\n

Potential Scratches: Bryan Rust (day-to-day injury), Connor Clifton, Rafael Harvey-Pinard<\/p>\n

IR: Filip Hallander, Caleb Jones, Rutger McGroarty<\/p>\n

Rust\u2019s injury managed to shake up the lines just enough to seemingly throw them off yesterday. The only goal the Pens generated came from their second line, which was left unchanged. The new lines couldn\u2019t find immediate success, we\u2019ll see if it just needed a day to gel and come together.<\/p>\n

Looking for a better start<\/p>\n

Over their recent six-game winning streak, the Penguins came flying out of the gates by scoring 13 total goals<\/a> in the first period. That put them ahead after 20 minutes in five out of the six games. Pittsburgh was losing 1-0 to Calgary yesterday at the first break, managing only six shots and not looking at the start as they have been of late.<\/p>\n

That was top of mind for Anthony Mantha yesterday speaking after the game about what the team will be looking to do today.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Who: Pittsburgh Penguins (21-13-9, 51 points, 5th place Metropolitan Division) @ Boston Bruins (24-19-2, 50 points, 5th place…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":84019,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[3264,73,75,74],"class_list":["post-84018","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-pittsburgh","tag-game-preview","tag-pittsburgh","tag-pittsburgh-headlines","tag-pittsburgh-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84018","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=84018"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84018\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/84019"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=84018"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=84018"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=84018"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}