Game Preview: Detroit Red Wings @ Pittsburgh Penguins 3/17/2024 – Lines, how to watch

Who: Detroit Red Wings (34-27-6, 74 points, 5th place Atlantic Division) @ Pittsburgh Penguins (29-28-9, 67 points, 7th place Metropolitan Division)

When: 6 p.m. ET

How to Watch: Sportsnet Pittsburgh and Bally Sports Detroit in the local markets, NHL Network for the rest

Pens’ Path Ahead: The Pens head to New Jersey for a Tuesday night game, then get their first instance of two consecutive days without games since Feb 23-24. The road trip continues next Friday in Dallas and then ends in Colorado a week from today.

Opponent Track: The Red Wings are probably the most volatile team in the NHL right now. They were unstoppable coming out of the All-Star break, going 7-2-0 that included a six-game winning streak. Vibes were through the roof when they smacked down the Capitals by an 8-3 final score on February 27th. Then the roller coaster went down and they lost seven straight games going into yesterday’s game against Buffalo. They’ve been booed off the ice at home and had teammates fighting in practice as times have gotten tough.

Season Series: Detroit took the first game 6-3 way back in mid-October and the two teams haven’t seen each other since. They play again on April 11th near the end of the season to close out the three-game series.

Getting to know the Red Wings

Projected lines (from practice on Friday)

FORWARDS

Alex DeBrincat – J.T. Compher – Patrick Kane

David Perron – Joe Veleno – Lucas Raymond

Michael Rasmussen – Andrew Copp – Christian Fischer

Robby Fabbri – Austin Czarnik – Daniel Sprong

DEFENSEMEN

Shayne Gostisbehere / Moritz Seider

Ben Chiarot / Jeff Petry

Olli Maatta / Justin Holl

Goalies: Alex Lyon, Ville Husso (James Reimer started yesterday)

Possible scratches: Jake Wallman, Jonatan Berggren, Dylan Larkin

IR: none

—Sounds like Larkin is out with an injury through today, which is a break for the Pens to not see Detroit’s leading scorer.

—Wallman and Sprong are each dealing with minor injuries, it’s possible Wallman could be back for today.

Player stats

(via hockeydb, not including yesterday’s game)

—Patrick Kane is something more of a hockey player and into a medical marvel at this point. He had the hip surgery that quickly ended the careers of players like Ryan Kesler, Ed Jovanovski and Nicklas Backstrom. Kane (plus medical technology) has raised the bar and is showing that the hip resurfacing isn’t the automatic career ender that is once was under the right circumstances.

—Daniel Sprong is having one of the more interesting career paths in recent memory. The Red Wings mark his fourth different team in the last five seasons. He’s good at scoring, bad at finding a niche anywhere — he’s only played in the 11-13 minute range on lower lines at every stop of the way. He’s productive, but still never found a comfortable fit with any coach or team he’s been at.

And now for the Penguins

Projected lines

FORWARDS

Drew O’Connor – Sidney Crosby – Bryan Rust

Michael Bunting – Evgeni Malkin – Rickard Rakell

Reilly Smith – Lars Eller – Valtteri Puustinen

Emil Bemstrom – Noel Acciari – Jeff Carter

DEFENSEMEN

Marcus Pettersson / Kris Letang

Ryan Graves / Erik Karlsson

John Ludvig / P.O. Joseph

Goalies: Alex Nedeljkovic (Tristan Jarry started yesterday)

Potential Scratches: Jesse Puljujarvi, John St. Ivany

IR: Matt Nieto (knee surgery), Jansen Harkins (hand injury)