{"id":378165,"date":"2025-12-30T16:40:09","date_gmt":"2025-12-30T16:40:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/378165\/"},"modified":"2025-12-30T16:40:09","modified_gmt":"2025-12-30T16:40:09","slug":"game-preview-carolina-hurricanes-pittsburgh-penguins-12-30-25","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/378165\/","title":{"rendered":"Game Preview: Carolina Hurricanes @ Pittsburgh Penguins 12\/30\/25"},"content":{"rendered":"

Who: Carolina Hurricanes (24-11-3, 51 points, 1st place Metropolitan Division) @ Pittsburgh Penguins (16-12-9, 41 points, 7th place Metropolitan Division)<\/p>\n

How to Watch: Local broadcast on SportsNet Pittsburgh and FanDuel Sports Network South, streaming on ESPN+<\/p>\n

Pens\u2019 Path Ahead: The Penguins remain in Pittsburgh this week for a New Year\u2019s Day matchup with the Detroit Red Wings before hitting the road for a back-to-back set in Detroit and Columbus.<\/p>\n

Opponent Track: For the second straight game, the Pens are taking on an opponent coming in on the wrong latter of a back-to-back. The Canes claimed a 3-2 overtime victory over the New York Rangers on Monday night in Raleigh.<\/p>\n

Season Series: This is the first meeting of the season for these two Metropolitan Division teams. The Pens will get better acquainted with the Canes in March, when the two teams are set to meet three times in a 12-day span.<\/p>\n

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

Projected lines (from Monday night\u2019s game against the Rangers)<\/p>\n

Andrei Svechnikov – Sebastian Aho – Logan Stankoven<\/p>\n

Nikolaj Ehlers – Jesperi Kotkaniemi – Jackson Blake<\/p>\n

William Carrier – Jordan Staal – Jordan Martinook<\/p>\n

Taylor Hall – Mark Jankowski – Eric Robinson<\/p>\n

Alexander Nikishin \/ Sean Walker<\/p>\n

K\u2019Andre Miller \/ Jalen Chatfield<\/p>\n

Mike Reilly \/ Joel Nystrom<\/p>\n

Goalies: Frederick Andersen, Brandon Bussi<\/p>\n

Potential scratches: Shayne Gostisbehere (groin), Noah Philp, Gavin Bayreuther<\/p>\n

Injured Reserve: Pyotr Kotchetkov, Jaccob Slavin, Seth Jarvis<\/p>\n

Brandon Bussi is 13-1-1 in 15 NHL games, but he also started last night for an overtime win over the New York Rangers. That means the Pens might be tasked with taking on Frederik Andersen. It\u2019s been a tough season for Andersen, who hasn\u2019t recorded a win since Nov. 6, but the Canes will hope he can bounce back now that Pyotr Kotchetkov is expected<\/a> to miss the rest of the season.The Canes have a big offensive presence missing from the lineup in Seth Jarvis, who had scored 19 goals in his first 34 games of the season on the top line. He\u2019s week-to-week after suffering a lower-body injury on a Dec. 19 collision<\/a> involving former Penguin and currently Florida Panther Evan Rodrigues.Jaccob Slavin, who had recently returned from a 29-game injury absence, is also week-to-week after suffering an injury in that same game against the Panthers.\"\"<\/a>Jackson Blake played hero for the Canes last night when he scored on an overtime power-play deflection.The Hurricanes are one of the highest-scoring teams in the NHL this season, and it\u2019s mostly because of their dominance at even strength. They\u2019re the best team in the NHL at controlling puck possession at 5v5, per Natural Stat Trick<\/a>. That\u2019s a major part of the reason they\u2019re averaging 3.29 goals per game (sixth in the NHL) despite scoring on just 17.8 percent of power-play opportunities (22nd in the league).The Canes won all three games in this season series in 2024-25. They\u2019re once again going to be a tough matchup this season for the Penguins, who rank 22nd in the NHL in 5v5 goals scored so far this season.<\/p>\n

Projected lines (from Saturday\u2019s practice)<\/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 – 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 and Arturs Silovs<\/p>\n

Potential Scratches: Connor Clifton, Kevin Hayes, Yegor Chinakhov?<\/p>\n

IR: Evgeni Malkin, Filip Hallander, Caleb Jones<\/p>\n

The Penguins gave up some draft capital and Danton Heinen in order to acquire Yegor Chinakhov from the Blue Jackets on Monday. Ryan Graves will be placed on waivers Tuesday in order to make room for Chinakhov on the roster, per Seth Rorabaugh<\/a>.Chinakhov has just six points (three goals, three assists) in 29 games this season. The Pens will now to see if the 24-year-old can bounce back to contribute more in his final season under contract before hitting restricted free agency<\/a> next summer.Erik Karlsson didn\u2019t skate during Monday\u2019s practice due to what the Penguins described<\/a> as illness. Per team reporter Michelle Crechiolo, however, Dan Muse indicated Karlsson\u2019s absence both from practice and from the end of Sunday\u2019s blowout win over the Chicago Blackhawks were \u201cprecautionary.\u201dEvgeni Malkin and Filip Hallander both skated before Monday\u2019s practice.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Who: Carolina Hurricanes (24-11-3, 51 points, 1st place Metropolitan Division) @ Pittsburgh Penguins (16-12-9, 41 points, 7th place…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":378166,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[66],"tags":[257,385,99],"class_list":{"0":"post-378165","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nhl","8":"tag-general","9":"tag-nhl","10":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/378165","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=378165"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/378165\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/378166"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=378165"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=378165"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=378165"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}