Friday, March 21, 2025 – 7:00 PM ET
PPG Paints Arena – Pittsburgh
TV: NHLN, SN, TVAS, FDSNOH, SN-PIT – Radio: 97.1FM
Columbus Blue Jackets (31-28-9, 71 points, 6th Metropolitan, 11th East)
at
Pittsburgh Penguins (28-32-10, 66 points, 7th Metropolitan 14th East)
March Madness is in full swing and yet we’re here to talk about a hockey team that has scored 1 goal in its last 4 games.
Players to Watch
Tristan Jarry
After a terrible start to the season for the Penguins goaltender that resulted in an extended stay in Wilkes-Barre Scranton, he’s been recalled and has showed good form of late with a .919 save percentage in his last 4. Jarry has been a notoriously inconsistent goaltender known for giving up soft ones. Can the Jackets crack him early?
(Jarry is not playing tonight, Ned gets the start and a lot of the same inconsistency talk can be applied to him)
Jackets Notes
Still on Monahan/Sillinger/Gudbranson watch, I’ll update this post later if we hear any news.
Columbus won for the first time in Pittsburgh in nearly a decade back in January and have already clinched the season series. Has this team lifted the curse and can they sweep this aging Pens squad?
The Other Bench
Despite a miserable season, the Penguins have won 4 of their last 5 in large part to outrageous shooting and good goaltending. PDO is not a predictive metric but having a PDO of 112 in your last 5 games means you are getting almost all of the goals and all of the saves. Columbus has a PDO of 92 in that same span, let’s see if both those numbers can regress towards 100 tonight.
Season Series
11/15/2024 PIT 2 @ CBJ 6
01/07/2025 CBJ 4 @ PIT 3 (SO)
03/21/2025 CBJ @ FLA
Stats
| Pittsburgh | Columbus | |
| 2.9 (19) | GPG | 3.15 (11) |
| 3.56 (31) | GAPG | 3.28 (27) |
| 24% (11) | PP% | 19% (23) |
| 77.3% (19) | PK% | 75.3% (25) |
| 50.7% (10) | 5v5 Shot Attempt % | 47.99% (27) |
| 49.77% (17) | 5v5 Unblocked Shot Attempt % | 48.67% (24) |
| 8.53% (23) | 5v5 Shooting % | 10.03% (3) |
| .898 (30) | 5v5 Save % | .909 (20) |
| Rickard Rakell, 31 | G Leader | Kirill Marchenko, 25 |
| Sidney Crosby, 50 | A Leader | Zach Werenski, 49 |
| Sidney Crosby, 74 | P Leader | Zach Werenski, 69 (nice) |
| P.O. Joseph, 45 | PIM Leader | Matthieu Olivier, 120 |
| 17-14-5 | Home/Road | 11-19-4 |
| 5-4-1 | Last 10 | 3-6-1 |
Projected Lineups
Columbus Blue Jackets
| Kent Johnson | Adam Fantilli | Kirill Marchenko |
| Dmitri Voronkov | Boone Jenner | Yegor Chinakhov |
| Zach Aston-Reese | Justin Danforth | Mathieu Olivier |
| James van Riemsdyk | Sean Kuraly | Luke Kunin |
| Zach Werenski | Dante Fabbro |
| Denton Mateychuk | Ivan Provorov |
| Jack Johnson | Damon Severson |
| Elvis Merzlikins |
| Jet Greaves |
Pittsburgh Penguins
| Rickard Rakell | Sidney Crosby | Bryan Rust |
| Connor Dewar | Evgeni Malkin | Philip Tomasino |
| Joona Koppanen | Blake Lizotte | Noel Acciari |
| Danton Heinen | Kevin Hayes | Boko Imama |
| Kris Letang | Conor Timmins |
| Matt Grzelcyk | Erik Karlsson |
| Ryan Graves | Vladislav Kolyachonok |
| Alex Nedeljkovic |
| Tristan Jarry |