Game preview: New York Rangers @ Pittsburgh Penguins, October 9, 2024

WHO: New York Rangers (0-0-0, 0 points) @ Pittsburgh Penguins (0-0-0, 0 points)

When: 7:30 p.m. ET

Here's how to watch: nationally televised game on TNT, streaming on Max

The path of the pens lies before us: For the Pens it will be a sprint from the start. They play again tomorrow and then straight away have the dreaded three games in four days (and four games in six, five in eight and up to 10 games in the first 17 days). And an early road trip with Pittsburgh heads to Detroit tomorrow night, followed by Toronto Saturday night and then Montreal on Monday, and it's going to be a whirlwind right out of the gate. The Pens are back home a week from today to host the Sabres.

Enemy bar: Today is also the Rangers' first game of the 2024-25 season. Their starting schedule isn't nearly as hectic, with NYR off after today until a Saturday night home game against Utah.

Season series: The Pens and Rangers will meet again on December 6th in New York, followed by another meeting at Madison Square Garden on February 7th. After that, NYR returns to Pittsburgh on February 23rd and the two rivals will be done playing each other early against division opponents that won't have games in March or April this year.

Hidden statistics: Pittsburgh is 30-16-10 all-time in home openers, including a record of 7-3-1 in their last 11 games (stick-tap to Pens PR).

Meet the Rangers

Projected lines

FORWARD

Chris Kreider – Mika Zibanejad – Reilly Smith

Artemi Panarin – Vince Trocheck – Alexis Lafreniere

Will Cuylle – Filip Chytil – Kaapo Kakko

Adam Edstrom – Sam Carrick – Matt Rempe

DEFENDER

K'Andre Miller / Adam Fox

Braden Schneider / Jacob Trouba

Zac Jones/Victor Mancini

Goalkeeper: Igor Shesterkin and Jonathan Quick

Possible scratches: Chad Ruhwedel, Johnny Brodzinski

IR: Ryan Lindgren, Jimmy Vesey

—New York is dealing with some injuries, Panarin and Zibanejad were injured in the preseason but are expected to play tonight.

—Lindgren will not play tonight as his absence due to injury has opened the door for 2022 fifth-round pick Victor Mancini to potentially make his NHL debut tonight. Mancini played three years at Nebraska-Omaha and turned pro late last year to get some time in the AHL. At 22 years old, he could be a good find for NYR if the 6'4″, 215-pounder's development continues.

Player statistics (from 2023-24)

(above Ankle jointeydb)

—It doesn't take much to get to know the 2024-25 Rangers, their core is the same as last year's Presidents Trophy-winning team. NYR returns all six of its top scorers from 2023-24 and 11 of its top 13 scorers overall. Overall, the departures were small (Erik Gustafsson, Blake Wheeler, Barclay Goodrow as well as their trade leases of Jack Roslovic and Alex Wennberg). Otherwise, the same crew we all know will try to push it back for what could be the last time.

– They'll be looking for more secondary scoring, the top four forwards and defenseman Fox did almost all of the damage last season while the lower lines contributed very little offensively. That makes signing Reilly Smith (at 75% of his cap hit) a key point for the Rangers if they can get him back on track and he recovers from a boring one-year stay in Pittsburgh.

—Special teams are usually special in Manhattan; Last year, NYR had the third-best power play (26.4%) and third-best penalty kill (84.5%) in the NHL.

And now to the pens

Infographic courtesy of the Pittsburgh Penguins

Projected lines

FORWARD

Drew O'Connor – Sidney Crosby – Anthony Beauvillier

Michael Bunting – Evgeni Malkin – Rickard Rakell

Rutger McGroarty – Lars Eller – Jesse Puljujarvi

Kevin Hayes – Cody Glass -Noel Acciari

DEFENDER

Marcus Pettersson / Erik Karlsson

Matt Grzelcyk / Kris Letang

Ryan Graves / Jack St. Ivany

Goalkeeper: Tristan Jarry (Joel Blomqvist)

Possible scratches: Ryan Shea, Valtteri Puustinen

IR: Matt Nieto (knee surgery), Bryan Rust, Alex Nedeljkovic, Blake LizotteVasily Ponomarev

—Above, the Penguins' new players are italicized in case you're up to date or just want a visual representation to help all of the new players on the roster stand out. The 20 players moving in tonight include four newly added forwards and a total of six players who will be playing in Pittsburgh for the first time (well, Blomqvist has been called up to the NHL before, but hasn't played as well in a game as this one). Just). , so you understand).

—Also, if you look closely, there are only four forwards left on this team who were older than Kyle Dubas (Crosby, Malkin, Rust, Rakell and partly O'Connor – who Dubas didn't take over but had to re-sign). retained). In defense and in goal, too, it is an almost completely new team around a few core players (Letang and Pettersson and partly Jarry, who had to be re-signed). All of these changes happened in just 16 months that Dubas was in office. I think it's underrated, or perhaps more accurately overlooked, by a lot of people how frequently NHL teams trade up their core group of 5-6 players.

– Rust skated in a non-contact jersey during practice yesterday. His whole IR status was weird – the team backdated him so he could play at any time, but they only had (and still have) 22 players on the roster, so they could have kept him on the regular roster without going over that Border. I'm not really sure what the purpose is other than keeping options as open as possible. Rust needed some power play work in the second group, but expects to miss at least today. Considering he's started 10 games in the first 17 days, it's fortunate that it doesn't look like he'll miss a ton of action.

Milestone clock

• Rutger McGroarty is driving the rookie warm-up lap alone for his first career game tonight (it would also be Joel Blomqvist's NHL debut, although he is not scheduled to play today).
• Evgeni Malkin begins the day two goals shy of .500 for his career
• Malkin is also just two assists away from 800
• Add that up and you see that Malkin is four points away from 1,300
• Sidney Crosby is also four points away from a round number (in his case, 1,600 career points).
• Crosby begins his 20th (!!!) season tonight and joins Alex Delvecchio (24), Stan Mikita (22) and Steve Yzerman as the 11th player in NHL history to spend his entire career in at least 20 seasons at one Team has spent (22), Dit Clapper (20), Jean Beliveau (20), Patrik Elias (20), Henri Richard (20), Ken Daneyko (20) and Nicklas Lidstrom (20). Alex Ovechkin will be the 12th to join the list as his season begins. (Stick Tap, Pens PR… And who knew we'd get a Dit Clapper reference in the first game of 2024-25?)
• Kris Letang is entering his 19th season and he is only the third defenseman in NHL history to play more than 19 seasons with just one NHL team (Daneyko and Lidstrom are the others).

Because young Rutger McGroarty is playing at PPG today

It's incredibly rare to see someone as young as McGroarty play in the NHL with the Penguins during this era where they've only had one top-10 draft pick in the last 18 years (Derrick Pouliot in 2012). McGroarty is expected to be the eighth-youngest Penguin in the Crosby era when he makes his debut tonight.

From Pens PR:

McGroarty, who was drafted by the Jets in the first round (14th overall) of the 2022 NHL Draft, has spent the last two seasons at the University of Michigan (NCAA). Last season, the forward ranked second at Michigan with an NCAA career-high 52 points (16G-36A) in 36 games, and his plus-point total of 17 led the club (tied). McGroarty represented Team USA as captain at the 2024 World Junior Championships, recording nine points (5G-4A) in seven games.

If McGroarty is in the lineup tonight, he would be the ninth-youngest player in the Sidney Crosby era (2005-2006-present) to make his NHL debut with Pittsburgh:

Player's NHL debut age ranking

1 Jordan Staal Oct 5, 2006 18-025
2 Sidney Crosby October 5, 2005 18-059
3 Daniel Sprong Oct 8, 2015 18-205
4 Olli Maatta October 3, 2013 19-042
5 Kris Letang October 5, 2006 19-164
6 Evgeni Malkin Oct 18, 2006 20-079
7 Luca Caputi February 3, 2009 20-125
8 Simon Despres December 1, 2011 20-127
9 Rutger McGroarty Oct 9, 2024 20-193
10 Dustin Jeffrey December 26, 2008 20-303

The Pens aren't really in the midst of a youth movement yet, with their average age of 29.7 still ranking 31st of the 32 teams in the NHL. But entering the 2023-24 season, the Pens' average age was 30.8, so it's actually pretty impressive that while they did bring back nine players over 30 (who are now obviously all a year older than they were last year). were around this time). The average age of the team was still reduced by a whole year.

Young players like McGroarty will help as the Penguins slowly and eventually move away from veterans and toward more of the youth they are trying to bring with them.