The Penguins continue their season-long seven-game road trip spanning a total of 15 days and are 2-1-0 thus far. It’s the longest road trip for Pittsburgh since their eight-game road swing nearly 30 years ago from Oct. 14-28, 1997 (NYR-MTL-TBL-FLA-SJS-EDM-VAN-CGY).
The Penguins are 13-9-4 dating back to Nov. 27 and in this span, only Tampa Bay has scored more goals than Pittsburgh.
Sidney Crosby’s tally on Monday night in Los Angeles doubled as the game-winning goal. Crosby, who is tied for the team lead with four game-winning goals, is now tied with Steve Yzerman for 13th place on the NHL’s all-time game-winning goals list. Only four players in NHL history have more game-winning goals with one team than Crosby’s 94.
The Penguins captain is also just one point shy of surpassing Hall-of-Famer Joe Sakic for sole possession of the 10th-most road points in NHL history.
Bryan Rust, who ranks second on Pittsburgh with 19 goals, is just one tally shy of his sixth 20-goal season. He’s looking to become just the ninth player in franchise history to have six or more 20-goal seasons with the team.
Kevin Hayes tallied a goal and an assist on Monday in Los Angeles, giving him five points in 10 games (4G-1A) since returning to the lineup on a regular basis on Jan. 3. During that span, only Rickard Rakell has more goals on Pittsburgh.
Evgeni Malkin enters this game with multiple points in five of his last eight games versus Anaheim (5G-8A). In 24 career games against the Ducks, Malkin has recorded 29 points (11G-18A), and his 1.21 points-per-game average against them is third among active players and is tied for sixth in NHL history (min. 20 GP).
Defenseman Erik Karlsson has picked up 26 points (9G-17A) in 33 career games versus Anaheim. Karlsson’s nine goals against the Ducks is the second most among all active defensemen behind Brent Burns (15), and the Ducks are the only team that he has recorded a hat trick against (Nov. 1, 2022: 3G-1A).
Karlsson has an active seven-game point streak versus the Ducks, which is tied for the second-longest point streak against them among active defensemen.
Quick Hits
1) Sidney Crosby has multiple points in six of his last 17 games against the Ducks and 23 points overall during that stretch (9G-14A). Here in Anaheim, he’s been held off the scoresheet just three times in 13 games, accumulating 13 points (4G-9A).
2) Kevin Hayes has notched 14 points (8G-6A) in 20 career games against the Ducks. He has seven points (4G-3A) in his last six games versus them, which includes his only career hat trick which came on Jan. 17, 2023 (3G).
3) Matt Grzelcyk enters this game with 25 points (1G-24A) and is just one point shy of tying his career high of 26 set in 75 games with Boston in 22-23.
4) The Penguins rank fourth in the NHL in power-play percentage (27.1%) and have gone 4-for-7 (57.1%) through the first three games of their seven-game road trip.
5) The Penguins own an overall record of 399-90-49 when both Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin record a point in a game.