Hidden Stat 2.0: Home ice hasn\u2019t been that friendly to the Penguins, who have only won 16 out of the 35 games at PPG Paints Arena (with another \u201chome\u201d win in the standings counted in a victory in Sweden when the Pens were designated as the home team). Overall the Pens are just 16-11-8 this season in their true home arena.<\/p>\n
Getting to know the Stars<\/p>\n
Jason Robertson – Wyatt Johnston – Mavrik Bourque<\/p>\n
Michael Bunting – Matt Duchene – Jamie Benn<\/p>\n
Sam Steel – Justin Hryckowian – Colin Blackwell<\/p>\n
Adam Erne – Oskar Back – Nathan Bastian<\/p>\n
Esa Lindell \/ Miro Heiskanen<\/p>\n
Thomas Harley \/ Nils Lundkvist<\/p>\n
Lian Bichsel \/ Tyler Myers<\/p>\n
Goalies: Jake Oettinger and Casey DeSmith<\/p>\n
Potential scratches: Roope Hintz (lower body)<\/p>\n
Injured Reserve: Mikko Rantanen (lower body), Radek Faksa (lower body), Tyler Seguin (season-ending knee injury)<\/p>\n
Rantanen is nearing a return from injury, he participated in Thursday\u2019s morning skate ahead of the NYI game (though he didn\u2019t play). As of 12 days ago Rantanen was said to be 10-14 days away, so he\u2019s right in the window for a possible return to action for today\u2019s game.The Stars will be without Tyler Seguin for the rest of the season and the playoffs after placing him on LTIR in February amid his recovery from a torn ACL. They\u2019ll still hope to get Hintz and Faksa back in time for the postseason, in addition to the impending return of Rantanen.Former Penguin Michael Bunting was one of the Stars\u2019 additions at the trade deadline alongside defenseman Tyler Myers. Bunting has since slotted in on Dallas\u2019 second line alongside Matt Duchene.Dallas could soon have two brothers on the same team for the first time since Jamie and Jordie Benn. The Stars recently signed<\/a> Dylan Hryckowian, brother and former college teammate of third-line center Justin Hryckowian, to an entry-level contract.<\/p>\n Generating offense has been an issue for Dallas during their current losing streak. They\u2019re currently without two of their top-five point producers and stretching others into bigger roles has had an effect on output lately.<\/p>\n Rickard Rakell – Sidney Crosby* – Bryan Rust<\/p>\n Egor Chinakhov – Tommy Novak – Anthony Mantha<\/p>\n Ville Koivunen – Ben Kindel – Justin Brazeau<\/p>\n Elmer Soderblom – Connor Dewar – Noel Acciari<\/p>\n Parker Wotherspoon \/ Erik Karlsson<\/p>\n Ryan Shea \/ Connor Clifton<\/p>\n Goalies: Arturs Silovs and Stuart Skinner<\/p>\n Potential Scratches: Ilya Solovyov, Blake Lizotte (injured), Kevin Hayes, Ryan Graves, Evgeni Malkin (injured)<\/p>\n IR: Filip Hallander, Jack St. Ivany<\/p>\n The Pens canceled a practice yesterday, so we\u2019ll have to wait and see for this morning on any updates on the status of Crosby. If Crosby can\u2019t play, it\u2019s possible that Joona Koppanen will be in the lineup as a bottom-six center. The team could also opt to shift Rickard Rakell or Noel Acciari to center for the day and insert a winger like Avery Hayes into the lineup. Depending on Crosby\u2019s status it could be a very fluid situation with a couple different options on how they want to go about patching a lineup together.We\u2019ll also await word on Evgeni Malkin, officially day-to-day with an undisclosed injury (believed to be in the finger\/hand area). Malkin did not even travel with the team to Ottawa for Thursday\u2019s game which might not bode well for his availability just a couple days later.Bryan Rust is currently in the midst of a career-long nine-game point streak (5G-8A) and has points in 14 of his last 15 games played (7G-12A) dating back to Feb. 28th, per Pens PR. Rust\u2019s streak is the second longest active one in the league behind Boston\u2019s David Pastranak (11).Sam Girard is set to play in career game No. 600 today. Not bad for a guy who won\u2019t turn 28 until May.Whether or not the goalie rotation continues will be interesting as well, Skinner has been performing<\/a> much better than Silovs lately \u2014 but the team has other considerations in mind with a massive set of games on Monday\/Tuesday against NYI and Detroit. They may want to keep Skinner fresh and in rhythm for that Monday game by not leaning too hard on him today, which would make Monday his third game in five days. They may also not want Silovs to have his next action come on Tuesday and have him go a full week between starts by skipping him today. Lots to weigh and consider for that decision on who plays in goal today for the Pens with more variables in mind than simply this one game. Erik Karlsson is deep into Paul Coffey territory for points in a single month \u2014 always a great sign for any defender. Across the NHL this month, only Tampa\u2019s Nikita Kucherov (26) has more points than Karlsson with his 21.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Who: Dallas Stars (43-18-11, 97 points, 2nd place Central Division) @ Pittsburgh Penguins (36-20-16, 88 points, 2nd place…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":550622,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[66],"tags":[257,385,99],"class_list":{"0":"post-550621","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\/550621","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=550621"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/550621\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/550622"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=550621"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=550621"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=550621"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/dals.jpg\"\/)
<\/a>Wyatt Johnston has recorded career highs in both goals and points while centering Jason Robertson, who is enjoying his fourth straight 80-point season in Dallas.It\u2019s been an up-and-down season for Stars goaltender Jake Oettinger, although he\u2019s been strong as of late. The Stars are playing the Philadelphia Flyers on the road tomorrow, so they\u2019ll have to decide whether Oettinger or former Penguins goaltender Casey DeSmith will be getting the start in Pittsburgh tonight.DeSmith, by the way, has only played against Pittsburgh once in his career. That happened last year as a member of the Stars, where he stopped 35 of 39 shots but picked up the loss. Oettinger has a lot of career success against the Pens, boasting a 6-1-0 record with a .942 save% and 1.71 GAA.The Stars have been running one of the most formidable power plays in the NHL this season, although their top unit has recently taken a hit with the injury absence of Mikko Rantanen.Dallas has had some injury issues but they haven\u2019t played many different players, just 27 skaters have dressed this season. By comparison, the Penguins have dressed 38 different skaters so far this season.![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/wkfqg5ggw0mviqozmrws.jpg\"\/)
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