![\"\"](\"https:\/\/platform.pensburgh.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/123\/2025\/12\/Screenshot-2025-12-15-at-8.25.10%E2%80%AFPM.png?quality=90&strip=all&crop=0,0,100,100\")
<\/a>This is a battle of two of the league\u2019s top power plays. The Penguins and Oilers are two of just three teams converting on more than 30 percent of man-advantage opportunities so far this season.The Oilers aren\u2019t doing as well stifling goals against, even at even strength or on the penalty kill. Edmonton is heading into this week with a 79.1 PK% (20th in the NHL) and 3.39 team GAA (26th).It\u2019s true that those numbers have something to do with Skinner\u2019s 0.891 save percentage in his first 23 appearances, but the Oilers defense has also been to blame especially early in the season. This team ranks 21st in the NHL in high-danger shots against, per MoneyPuck<\/a>.Edmonton will now hope changing up the goaltending situation will help the defensive corps regain some confidence and lower that rate down the stretch. That puts a significant amount of pressure on Jarry, especially after Connor McDavid recently signed a two-year extension<\/a> below market value in the hopes this team will win a Stanley Cup in 2026.Speaking of McDavid: He was named the First Star of the <\/a>Week last week after putting up 10 points (four goals, six assists) in the Oilers\u2019 last three games. He leads the league in assists (34) and ranks second in points (52) through 33 games. He\u2019s also officially the fastest player in the NHL this season, according to both NHL Edge<\/a> stats and the eye test below:Zach Hyman, who returned in November after missing the beginning of the season due to his recover from a broken wrist, has provided a boost alongside McDavid on the top line. He heads into the matchup on a three-game goalscoring streak.The Oilers\u2019 other star center could hit a milestone today as Leon Draisaitl enters the game one point short of 1,000. Draisaitl would be the 103rd NHL player and first player born in Germany<\/a> to reach the milestone should he get on the scoreboard in Pittsburgh.<\/p>\nRickard Rakell – Sidney Crosby – Bryan Rust<\/p>\n
Rutger McGroarty – Ben Kindel – Justin Brazeau<\/p>\n
Ville Koivunen – Tommy Novak – Anthony Mantha<\/p>\n
Connor Dewar – Kevin Hayes – Noel Acciari<\/p>\n
Parker Wotherspoon \/ Erik Karlsson<\/p>\n
Brett Kulak or Ryan Graves (?) \/ Connor Clifton<\/p>\n
Goalies: Stuart Skinner, Arturs Silovs<\/p>\n
Potential Scratches: Danton Heinen, Jack St. Ivany<\/p>\n
IR: Blake Lizotte, Evgeni Malkin, Filip Hallander, Caleb Jones<\/p>\n
Oilers pickups Stuart Skinner and Brett Kulak got added to the active roster Monday. Sergei Mursahov meanwhile got re-assigned to the AHL, so the Pens will be rolling into the week with Skinner and Silovs as the goaltending options.Brett Kulak is joining the Pens on the left side of the defense, so Graves could be a potential draft should the Pens slot him in to the lineup tonight.Sidney Crosby is just two points from matching Mario Lemieux\u2019s franchise-record career total of 1,723 points.The Penguins are heading into tonight on a five-game losing streak (it\u2019s featured some of the worst blown leads in the entire NHL this season, but at least they\u2019ve picked up four points in the 0-1-4 stretch without Evgeni Malkin on the second line and Blake Lizotte when they\u2019re down a man). This marks the first time this team has dropped five straight decisions since October 2024.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Who: Edmonton Oilers (15-12-6, 36 points, 4th place Pacific Division) @ Pittsburgh Penguins (14-8-9, 37 points, 5th place…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":358939,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5113],"tags":[3625,5,4,118,1469,100,5216],"class_list":{"0":"post-358938","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-pittsburgh-penguins","8":"tag-general","9":"tag-hockey","10":"tag-nhl","11":"tag-penguins","12":"tag-pittsburgh","13":"tag-pittsburgh-penguins","14":"tag-pittsburghpenguins"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/115729320292274056","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/358938","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=358938"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/358938\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/358939"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=358938"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=358938"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=358938"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}