Lightning at Penguins
The Pittsburgh Penguins have feasted on home cooking over the last two months, posting a 9-1-2 mark at Consol Energy Center to climb back into the postseason picture. The Penguins look to continue that good fortune and extend their regular-season home winning streak over the Tampa Bay Lightning to 10 games when the teams meet on Saturday afternoon.
Marc-Andre Fleury has played an integral role in that success and improved to 8-1-1 in his last 10 home starts by turning aside 35 shots in Pittsburgh's 6-3 victory over Detroit on Thursday. The 31-year-old Quebec native wasn't as fortunate in the first two meetings with Tampa Bay, yielding nine goals on 39 shots as the Lightning skated to a 5-4 overtime win on Jan. 15 and a 6-3 triumph on Feb. 5. Tampa Bay continued its offensive surge with a 6-5 shootout victory over Winnipeg on Thursday, but the players on the team took issue with its third-period collapse before notching its second win in six outings. "I don't think we can walk out of here and be proud of our performance," forward Steven Stamkos told the team's website. "... Sometimes you win games and you can't, as a team, collectively look in the mirror and be happy with that effort. It's just unacceptable."
TV: 12:30 p.m. ET, SN, TVA, SUN (Tampa Bay), ROOT (Pittsburgh)
ABOUT THE LIGHTNING (31-22-4): Nikita Kucherov is riding quite the hot streak with three goals in his last four outings - including the tying tally with 4:56 to play on Thursday. The 22-year-old Russian leads the team with 24 goals, but showed his ability to create offense with three assists in the first two meetings with the Penguins. Andrei Vasilevskiy has rebounded from a disastrous start to win seven of his last eight decisions - with a 36-save performance versus Pittsburgh on Jan. 15 included in the mix.
ABOUT THE PENGUINS (29-19-8): Phil Kessel initially struggled when paired with captain Sidney Crosby to begin the season, but the former picked it up after being reunited with the two-time Hart Trophy winner on Thursday. Kessel recorded his fourth multi-goal performance of the season and has three goals in as many games. As for Kessel's former linemate in Evgeni Malkin (lower body), he'll see his consecutive games missed total reach nine by sitting out both Saturday's contest and Sunday's tilt at Buffalo.
OVERTIME
1. Tampa Bay C Vladislav Namestnikov, who recorded his first career hat trick versus Pittsburgh on Jan. 15, practiced on Friday after missing two games with an upper-body injury.
2. The Penguins have killed off 14 consecutive power plays by their opponents while the Lightning are 1-for-19 with the man advantage in the last six contests.
3. Pittsburgh RW Patric Hornqvist scored in each encounter versus Tampa Bay this season.