The Chicago Blackhawks are in Pittsburgh on Thursday night to take on a red-hot Penguins team.

The Pittsburgh Penguins have put together an impressive season to this point, currently sitting second in the Metropolitan Division with a .618 points percentage. They’ve also been one of the league’s hottest teams of late, going 6-2-2 in their last 10 games, riding a four-game winning streak, and collecting points in seven straight. The underlying numbers don’t quite land in elite territory, but they’re more than holding their own, ranking in the top third of the NHL in shot attempt share (50.56 percent, 13th) and expected goal share (51.27 percent, 11th), which is more than good enough to support their place in the standings.

For a team with the fifth-oldest roster in the league, it’s been somewhat of a surprise season, but it also shows that a competent veteran group is still capable of finding ways to win. The Penguins’ offense continues to be driven by two forwards pushing 40, with the seemingly never-aging Sidney Crosby (1.12 points per game) and a revitalized Evgeni Malkin (1.11 PPG) setting the tone night after night. Age hasn’t slowed Pittsburgh much elsewhere, either: five of the team’s top six point producers are 30 or older, including Bryan Rust (0.83), Rickard Rakell (0.71), and Anthony Mantha (0.69). Rust remains an engine on the wing, Rakell has provided steady secondary scoring, and Mantha has fit in nicely as a complementary piece who can punish defenses when given space. Youthful contributions are sparse by comparison, with just two players in the top nine under 25: Egor Chinakhov (0.54), acquired via trade in late December, and 2025 first-round pick Ben Kindel (0.46).

The blue line also has two older veterans doing most of the heavy lifting: Erik Karlsson (0.72 points per game), who has looked far closer to the version that once redefined offense from the back end, and Kris Letang (0.51), who remains the steady, trusted-in-every-situation type of defenseman. Behind them, the rest of the defense corps is made up largely of players who are either relatively unknown or sound like they were spit out by a random name generator — Parker Wotherspoon, really? — but, to their credit, that group has held together well enough to keep pace with the forwards.

The Penguins will be without Rust against the Blackhawks as he is currently suspended:

Pittsburgh’s Bryan Rust has been suspended for three games for an illegal check to the head against Vancouver’s Brock Boeser. https://t.co/qzLChro3Xn

— NHL Player Safety (@NHLPlayerSafety) January 27, 2026

Here’s Pittsburgh’s lineup from the morning skate, including their power-play units:

As for the Blackhawks, they’re are coming off a frustrating loss Tuesday night in Minnesota, when a game that looked comfortably in hand slipped away. The Blackhawks jumped out to a 3-0 lead and controlled long stretches early, but couldn’t put the Wild away, allowing Minnesota to steadily claw back before forcing overtime and ultimately winning in the shootout. Another game with plenty of things to like in the process, but not always enough execution to close out the win. The Blackhawks have at least picked up a point in four of their last five games, and while some of that was on the back of good goaltending, there have been some sparks elsewhere in the lineup, too. They just need those sparks to happen on the offensive side of the ice to really get things going.

There’s also a shoutout due to Ilya Mikheyev, who leads the Blackhawks with five points (two goals, three assists) over those five games — but that stat line also neatly illustrates the problem with the offense right now. It doesn’t help that the power play has been terrible lately but, still: when a checking-line winger is your most productive scorer over a stretch like that, it’s less a testament to sustainable success and more a sign that the players relied upon to drive offense simply aren’t doing enough. Some of it is understandable, with young studs Connor Bedard and Frank Nazar just back from injury, but the hope is that they, along with others, start finding their rhythm over the next handful of games so as to leave on a positive note before the Olympic break.

The only lineup change indicated at the morning skate was Colton Dach slotting in the fourth line in place of Landon Slaggert.

Blackhawks lines in morning skate in Pittsburgh. Just one change: Dach in for Slaggert.

Nazar-Bedard-Teravainen
Greene-Moore-Burakovsky
Bertuzzi-Dickinson-Mikheyev
Donato-Foligno-Dach

Vlasic-Crevier
Kaiser-Levshunov
Grzelcyk-Murphy

Soderblom

— Ben Pope (@BenPopeCST) January 29, 2026

One other item of note regarding this matchup: the last time these two teams met was Dec. 28, an embarrassing outing in which the Blackhawks were routed 7‑3 by the Penguins. It was one of the games in which the team was still trying to find its footing without Bedard, even though it came a couple of weeks after his injury.

Here’s hoping the Blackhawks can redeem themselves a bit on Thursday.

Tale of the Tape

Blackhawks — Statistic — Penguins
47.03% (28th) — 5-on-5 Corsi For — 50.56% (13th)
44.76% (30th) — 5-on-5 Expected goals for — 51.27% (11th)
2.66 (26th) — Goals per game — 3.29 (10th)
3.08 (17th) — Goals against per game — 2.84 (8th)
47.3% (27th) — Faceoffs — 50.5% (14th)
19.9% (17th) — Power play — 27.4% (3rd)
85.5% (1st) — Penalty kill — 83.6% (6th)
(All stats from this season)

How to watch

When: 6 p.m. CT
Where: PPG Paints Arena, Pittsburgh
TV: CHSN
Webstream: ESPN+
Radio: WGN 720