{"id":443484,"date":"2026-02-03T16:00:13","date_gmt":"2026-02-03T16:00:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/443484\/"},"modified":"2026-02-03T16:00:13","modified_gmt":"2026-02-03T16:00:13","slug":"pittsburgh-penguins-visit-long-island-to-face-the-islanders","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/443484\/","title":{"rendered":"Pittsburgh Penguins visit Long Island to Face the Islanders"},"content":{"rendered":"

Like the Penguins, the Islanders have been a surprise this season. After selecting defenceman Matthew Schaefer<\/a> first overall in the 2025 NHL Entry Draft, the Islanders have quickly accelerated what was thought to be a rebuild, as they now find themselves fighting for a playoff spot. Like the Penguins, New York comes into this game on the second half of a back-to-back following a loss. They lost last night to the Washington Capitals<\/a> 4-1. Washington, as well as the Columbus Blue Jackets<\/a>, are a pair of Metropolitan Division teams threatening the Penguins and the Islanders for their divisional playoff spots. With an overall record of 30-21-5, the Islanders hold just a two-point lead over the Blue Jackets for that third spot in the division, making this an important game for both teams.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Mathew Barzal<\/a> was the lone goal scorer in last night\u2019s game. With his 15th goal of the season, Barzal has 47 points in 55 games this season. A lot of attention in this game is going to go to Calder Trophy favourite Matthew Schaefer. The 18-year-old defenceman has shattered expectations, scoring 15 goals and 37 points in 55 games. Watch for Canadian Olympian Bo Horvat<\/a> in this game as well. The star centre has 21 goals and 35 points in 42 games played this season.\u00a0<\/p>\n

With David Rittich<\/a> starting against the Capitals last night, expect Ilya Sorokin<\/a> to play against Pittsburgh. The superstar Russian netminder has been incredible this season, with a record of 18-13-2 and a .916 save percentage.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Like the Penguins, the Islanders have been a surprise this season. After selecting defenceman Matthew Schaefer first overall…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":443485,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5110],"tags":[5,122,3328,159,33100,5190,5189,4,30787],"class_list":{"0":"post-443484","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york-islanders","8":"tag-hockey","9":"tag-islanders","10":"tag-new-york","11":"tag-new-york-islanders","12":"tag-new-york-islanders-predictions","13":"tag-newyork","14":"tag-newyorkislanders","15":"tag-nhl","16":"tag-pittsburgh-penguins-predictions"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/116007536179786102","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/443484","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=443484"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/443484\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/443485"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=443484"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=443484"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=443484"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}