Game Notes
Sidney Crosby has 73 points (19G-54A) in 59 career games against the Bruins, which includes 32 points (7G-25A) over his last 28 contests. No active player in the NHL has more points against Boston than Crosby. With Crosby’s next point, he will surpass Mario Lemieux for the most points against the Bruins in franchise history.
Defensemen Kris Letang and Erik Karlsson have had success against Boston in their careers. The duo ranks second and fifth in points among active defensemen against the Bruins, respectively. Letang leads all active defensemen in assists (24) against the Bruins.
Sidney Crosby and Kris Letang have combined on 305 goals in their careers. They are one goal shy of tying Boston’s Phil Esposito and Bobby Orr for the second-most goals combined on by a forward-defenseman duo in NHL history.
Rickard Rakell has 16 points (7G-9A) in 19 games played against the Bruins, which includes four multi-point efforts.
Evgeni Malkin has 14 points (4G-10A) in 11 road games compared to seven points (1G-6A) in 13 home games.
Sidney Crosby is set to appear in his 1,297th career game, all of which have come with the Penguins. In doing so, he will move into sole possession of the 16th most games played with one franchise in NHL history.
Pittsburgh has points in six of eight games when Blake Lizotte is in the lineup (4-2-2).
Bryan Rust was a driving force behind Pittsburgh’s 5-4 win on Nov. 27, registering a season-high three-points (2G-1A) including the game-winning goal. In doing so, Rust has cracked the top-10 on the Penguins all-time game-winning goals list, as he’s moved into a three-way tie with Rick Kehoe and Martin Straka. Rust is also two points shy of tying Mark Recchi for 16th place on the franchise’s all-time points list.
Erik Karlsson notched his first three-point night of the season (3A) on Wednesday. No active defenseman has more three-plus point games than Karlsson, and his 51 three-plus point games are tied for 11th place in NHL history among defensemen. He has five points (5A) over his last five games.
Sidney Crosby notched two assists on Wednesday, giving him points in back-to-back games (1G-2A) and points in six of his last seven games overall (2G-5A). It marked Crosby’s 476th career multi-point game, which is one back of Steve Yzerman (477) for seventh place on the NHL’s all-time multi-point games list.
Pittsburgh’s power play cashed in again on Wednesday, going 1-for-4 on the evening. The Penguins now have a power-play goal in a season-long four-consecutive games, and five of the last six games overall. During their four-game streak with a power-play goal, Pittsburgh ranks seventh in the NHL in power-play percentage. A power-play goal Friday would give the Penguins their first such streak of five games since their 10-game power-play goal streak from Dec. 1-22, 2022 (14-for-38, 36.8%).
