Hurricanes at Penguins
The Carolina Hurricanes earned a much-needed road victory last time out and look to add another 24 hours later when they visit the stumbling Pittsburgh Penguins on Sunday afternoon. The Hurricanes had lost four straight (0-3-1) since their top two goalies went down with injuries, but Anton Forsberg made 24 saves and Vincent Trocheck scored in overtime for a 3-2 victory at the New York Islanders on Saturday.
“When you lose a few in a row, you just really need to grind one out,” Carolina veteran forward Justin Williams told reporters after scoring for the third straight game Saturday. “That’s what we said after the second (period), just stay in it, grind it out, be patient. If it takes 25 (minutes), it takes 25. I think it’s a big win for our club. We’ll see.” The Hurricanes are two points out in the race for an Eastern Conference wild-card spot with games in hand and will play Pittsburgh four times over the next three weeks after the Metropolitan Division rivals split four contests in 2018-19. The Penguins ended a six-game slide with consecutive victories earlier in the week, but fell behind by three goals in the first period en route to a 5-2 loss to Washington at home Saturday afternoon. “It boils down to discipline, to details and making sure we play attention,” Pittsburgh coach Mike Sullivan told reporters after the loss. “We have an awareness on the ice. We make better decisions. We support one another.”
TIME: 1:30 p.m. ET. TV: FS Carolinas, AT&T SportsNet Pittsburgh, TVA
ABOUT THE HURRICANES (36-25-5): Trocheck was a minus-3 with five shots and zero points in his first four games after coming over in a trade with Florida, but ended the frustration at 1:36 of overtime on the power play Saturday. “I wasn’t getting any bounces these first few games,” Trocheck told reporters after notching his 11th goal. “To finally get one, and for it to be an OT winner, it’s definitely something that I’ll remember.” All-Star center Sebastian Aho had an assist on Saturday’s winner to boost his team-leading total to 63 points (36 goals) and left wing Teuvo Teravainen had four of his 61 points in the past four contests.
ABOUT THE PENGUINS (39-22-6): Center Evgeni Malkin scored Saturday to push his team-best total to 70 points, including seven during a three-game point streak (six assists). Captain Sidney Crosby boasts goals in each of the last three contests and has 47 points in 39 games, sandwiching the time he missed for sports hernia surgery, while Bryan Rust leads the team with 27 goals - three coming Tuesday in a win against Ottawa. Matt Murray made 23 saves in Saturday’s loss and Tristan Jarry (20-11-1, .924 save percentage) will likely get a chance to snap a three-game losing streak Sunday.
OVERTIME
1. Pittsburgh D Kris Letang is slated to play his 807th game for the franchise Sunday, which would pass Jaromir Jagr for fourth all time.
2. Carolina RW Andrei Svechnikov had two assists Saturday to snap a three-game drought and push his total to 60 points.
3. The Penguins have scored a power-play goal in three straight games and killed off all 10 in the past four contests.