The big Penguins news of the day, the acquisition of forward David Perron, won’t have a big effect on tonight’s game against the Tampa Bay Lightning in Pittsburgh.
The 26-year old winger is expected to join the team in time for Saturday night’s home game against the Montreal Canadiens, but will still be traveling to Pittsburgh from Edmonton during tonight’s contest.
The Penguins will be adding a different forward in tonight’s lineup: right-winger Steve Downie will make his return to the ice after missing five games with the mumps. Downie played parts of four seasons with the Lightning, including his best statistical season in 2009-10 when he scored 22 goals and had 46 points to go along with 208 penalty minutes.
TONIGHT’S OPPONENT: Tampa Bay comes into tonight’s matchup riding a four-game winning streak, which started with a 4-3 victory against the Penguins on December 23 in Tampa.
Ben Bishop will make his return to the Lightning crease after missing seven games with a lower-body injury. The 6-foot-7 netminder is 0-2 in four career games against the Penguins with a .872 save percentage.
Lightning center Tyler Johnson has had a breakout year. The 24-year old is only ten points shy of his career high of 50, and torched Penguins with a hat trick the last time the teams met.
It will be the third and final game between the teams, all of which have come in the last 18 days. The teams have split the previous two matchups.
GREISS IN GOAL: Thomas Greiss will get his first start since he returned from the mumps. He hasn’t seen game action since an overtime loss at Columbus on December 13. So far this season, he has a 3-2-2 record and .919 save percentage in seven games. Greiss has never faced the Lightning.
“Whenever you have a back-to-back, you’re going to split your goaltending the majority of the time,” said Johnston. “For [Penguins goaltending coach Mike Bales] and myself, you can over-analyze it. You just pick a game, and go with it.”
TEMPERS FLARE: Right-winger Craig Adams and Evgeni Malkin got into a tussle at morning skate today, with Adams taking a bloodied mouth to the locker room.
“I was trying to find out exactly what happened,” said Penguins head coach Mike Johnston, who did not supervise today’s practice. “I just had a chance to talk to [Penguins assistant coaches] Rick Tocchet and Gary [Agnew], who were on the ice. I understand it was at the end of practice with a couple of guys in a drill – competing in a battle drill at the end and sticks got up and they got mad at each other.”
“Any time things like that happen, you’d like to get the players together and just work it out. Sometimes, it’s an isolated incident … you want to make sure it’s nothing deeper than that for sure.
MINOR MATTERS: The Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins (19-12-3, 1st in AHL East) beat the Hershey Bears 2-0 on Wednesday. Tom Kostopoulos and Dominik Uher scored for the Penguins. Jeff Zatkoff made 24 saves for his third shutout of the season. They host the Binghamton Senators tonight at 7:05 p.m.
The Wheeling Nailers (13-14, 4th ECHL North) are continuing their six-game stretch away from home ice tonight in Fort Wayne, Indiana. They are 1-2 so far on the current road trip.
#CAWLIDGEHAWKEY: The Robert Morris Colonials (12-3-3, 1st in AHC) will take on the Bowling Green Falcons on Saturday outdoors at the Toledo, Ohio Winterfest at Fifth/Third Field, the home of Toledo’s minor-league baseball team. Faceoff is scheduled for noon.
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