{"id":531170,"date":"2026-03-30T15:09:23","date_gmt":"2026-03-30T15:09:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/531170\/"},"modified":"2026-03-30T15:09:23","modified_gmt":"2026-03-30T15:09:23","slug":"penguins-game-74-a-playoff-fight-lines-notes-how-to-watch-vs-islanders","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/531170\/","title":{"rendered":"Penguins Game 74, a Playoff Fight; Lines, Notes, & How to Watch vs. Islanders"},"content":{"rendered":"

ELMONT, N.Y \u2014 Every NHL win is worth two points, but some are worth a lot more than a victory. The Pittsburgh Penguins<\/a>\u00a0(36-21-16) and New York Islanders (42-27-5) are two of the four Metro Division teams locked in a ferocious battle for the second and third place spots and a guaranteed playoff position, and they are separated by a mere one point. <\/p>\n

The puck drops Monday just after 7 p.m. and Sasha Allen sings the national anthem. <\/p>\n

The biggest question Monday is who will play for the Penguins? Sidney Crosby<\/a> was a full participant at practice Sunday. So, too, was Evgeni Malkin<\/a>. However, neither was confirmed to be playing Monday. Pittsburgh Hockey Now will update the story after the morning skate and coach Dan Muse<\/a> addresses the media. <\/p>\n

The Penguins have been on a dizzying sprint toward the end. They have played most games without Crosby and Malkin over the last couple of weeks and have fought to tread water in the race. They are only 4-4-2 in their last 10. <\/p>\n

The Penguins punted a winnable game Saturday, losing to the Dallas Stars 6-3. They closed to within 4-3 in the third period but could not net the equalizer before Dallas scored a pair of empty net goal. <\/p>\n

Anthony Mantha, Noel Acciari, and Erik Karlsson<\/a> scored the goals. Karlsson had his second consecutive three-point game (1-2-3). Stuart Skinner stopped 20 of 24 shots. <\/p>\n

The Islanders have kept pace in the Metro with a great assist from goalie Ilya Sorokin, and have won three of their last four games. Sorokin has a .914 save percentage and is on a Vezina Trophy path. <\/p>\n

The Islanders exploded for five goals in the second period Saturday to stomp the Florida Panthers, 5-2. Brayden Schenn, whom they acquired just before the NHL trade deadline on March 7, had a goal and two assists. Journeyman Marc Gatcomb had two points (1-1-2). <\/p>\n

Sorokin stopped 19 of 21 for the win. <\/p>\n

Penguins coach Dan Muse broke his goalie rotation Saturday and started Stuart Skinner, but the Penguins have back-to-back games Monday and Tuesday (Red Wings). Returning to the rotation, Arturs Silovs is expected to get the start. Sorokin is expected for the Islanders. <\/p>\n

How to Watch<\/p>\n

TV: SportsNet Pittsburgh <\/p>\n

Radio: 105.9 The X<\/p>\n

Expected Penguins Lines<\/p>\n

Rickard Rakell-Sidney Crosby Bryan Rust<\/p>\n

Egor Chinakhov-Tommy Novak-Evgeni Malkin<\/p>\n

Anthony Mantha-Ben Kindel-Justin Brazeau<\/p>\n

Elmer Soderblom-Connor Dewar-Noel Acciari<\/p>\n

Defense<\/p>\n

Parker Wotherspoon-Erik Karlsson<\/p>\n

Sam Girard-Kris Letang<\/p>\n

Ryan Shea-Connor Clifton<\/p>\n

Goalie: Arturs Silovs, expected<\/p>\n

Islanders Lines<\/p>\n

Anders Lee-Bo Horvat-Emil Heineman <\/p>\n

Calum Ritchie-Brayden Schenn-Mathew Barzal <\/p>\n

Ondrej Palat\u2013Jean-Gabriel Pageau\u2013Simon Holmstrom <\/p>\n

Kyle MacLean-Casey Cizikas-Marc Gatcomb <\/p>\n

Defense<\/p>\n

Matthew Schaefer-Ryan Pulock <\/p>\n

Adam Pelech-Carson Soucy <\/p>\n

Scott Mayfield-Adam Boqvist<\/p>\n

Goalie: Ilya Sorokin, expected<\/p>\n

Special Teams<\/p>\n

Penguins\u2019 power play: 24.4%, 6th. Penguins penalty kill: 82.1%, 4th.<\/p>\n

Islanders power play: 16.4%, 31st.\u00a0Islanders penalty kill: 81.5%, 9th.<\/p>\n

Penguins Games<\/p>\n

The games at UBS Arena have been a battle. In fact, nearly all Penguins vs. Islanders games have been tight battles. The Penguins are 8-6-5 in their last 19 games against the Islanders.<\/p>\n

By scoring Saturday, Erik Karlsson became the first Penguins defenseman to score seven goals in a seven-game span. <\/p>\n

Karlsson now has 25 points (9-16-25) in the last 16 games. He leads all NHL defensemen in points in that span.<\/p>\n

Rickard Rakell has points in 11 of his last 12 games (6-9-15) and is currently on a three-game point streak (3-2-5).<\/p>\n

Kris Letang leads all active NHL blueliners in goals (13), assistsv(37) and points (50) versus the Islanders.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tTags: islanders lines<\/a> New York Islanders<\/a> Penguins game<\/a> Penguins lines<\/a> Penguins starting goalie<\/a> Pittsburgh Penguins<\/a> <\/p>\n

Categorized:Penguins Pregame<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ELMONT, N.Y \u2014 Every NHL win is worth two points, but some are worth a lot more than…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":444210,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5113],"tags":[5,43203,159,4,118,6634,16008,29266,1469,100,5216],"class_list":{"0":"post-531170","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-pittsburgh-penguins","8":"tag-hockey","9":"tag-islanders-lines","10":"tag-new-york-islanders","11":"tag-nhl","12":"tag-penguins","13":"tag-penguins-game","14":"tag-penguins-lines","15":"tag-penguins-starting-goalie","16":"tag-pittsburgh","17":"tag-pittsburgh-penguins","18":"tag-pittsburghpenguins"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/116318762642282357","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/531170","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=531170"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/531170\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/444210"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=531170"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=531170"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=531170"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}