The Penguins continue their season-long seven-game road trip spanning a total of 15 days, and are 2-2-0 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).
Bryan Rust, who sustained a lower-body injury in Thursday's loss to Anaheim, did not practice Friday and is listed as day-to-day. The winger, 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.
Forward Matt Nieto is looking to suit up in his 700th career NHL game. Nieto has played parts of 12 seasons with the Pittsburgh Penguins, Colorado Avalanche and San Jose Sharks. The Long Beach, CA native ranks fourth in points among active California-born players and is fifth all-time.
Michael Bunting scored the lone goal for the Penguins on Thursday night. The goal came on the power play, marking his team-leading ninth power-play goal of the season, which is tied for sixth in the NHL. Bunting’s next power-play tally will make him just the seventh Penguin in the last 10 years to have 10-plus power-play goals in a season.
Sidney Crosby enters tonight’s game just one point shy of surpassing Hall-of-Famer Joe Sakic for sole possession of the 10th-most road points in NHL history.
Kevin Hayes has picked up five points in 11 games (4G-1A) since returning to the lineup on a regular basis on Jan. 3. During that span, only Rickard Rakell (6) has more goals on Pittsburgh.
Quick Hits
1) Blake Lizotte has six career points (1G-5A) in 11 games against Seattle, which includes points in four of his last six games against them (1G-3A).
2) Forward Michael Bunting has six points (1G-5A) in seven career games against the Kraken.
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 fifth in the NHL in power-play percentage (27.3%) and have gone 5-for-10 (50.0%) through the first four 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.