News Penguins Team Notes

[Pittsburgh Penguins]

Game Preview: Edmonton Oilers @ Pittsburgh Penguins 12/16/25

Who: Edmonton Oilers (15-12-6, 36 points, 4th place Pacific Division) @ Pittsburgh Penguins (14-8-9, 37 points, 5th place Metropolitan Division)

When: 7:30 p.m. ET

How to Watch: TNT, HBO Max, truTV

Pens’ Path Ahead: Tonight marks the final night of the Penguins’ homestand. Now the Pens will look to regroup when they head up to the Great White North for games against the Ottawa Senators (Thursday) and Montreal Canadiens (Saturday).

Opponent Track: The Oilers have gotten points in five of their last six games, although they’re most recently coming off to a 4-1 loss to the Canadiens in Montreal.

Season Series: The Penguins won’t see the Oilers again until Jan. 22, when the team heads to Edmonton as part of a four-game West Coast swing.

Hidden Stat: The Penguins aren’t the only team that has struggled with blowing leads this season. The Oilers have gone into 15 third periods with a lead and suffered four overtime losses in that stretch.

Getting to know the Oilers​

Projected lines

FORWARDS

Ryan Nugent-Hopkins – Connor McDavid – Zach Hyman

Vasily Podkolzin – Leon Draisaitl – Matthew Savoie

Trent Frederic – Adam Henrique – Mattias Janmark

Andrew Mangiapane – Curtis Lazar – Max Jones

DEFENSEMEN

Mattias Ekholm – Evan Bouchard

Darnell Nurse – Alec Regula

Spencer Stastney – Ty Emberson

Goalies: Tristan Jarry, Calvin Pickard

Potential scratches: Riley Stillman, David Tomasek

Injured Reserve: Jake Walman, Kasperi Kapanen, Connor Clattenburg, Jack Roslovic

• The Oilers have alternated their last two games between former Penguins goaltender Tristan Jarry, who backstopped Edmonton to a 6-3 win in his first start for his new team, and incumbent starter Calvin Pickard, in front of whom the Oilers lost 4-1 on Sunday to the Canadiens.

Tristan Jarry rockin' his new threads

: @Sportsnet or stream on Sportsnet+ https://t.co/4KjbdjVctF pic.twitter.com/w9mQKBIE7q

— NHL (@NHL) December 14, 2025

• There’s a chance both Jarry and recent Oilers goaltender Stuart Skinner could get the nod tonight, just days after they were traded from their former teams.
• When asked Monday what reception he thought he would get in his return to Pittsburgh, Jarry answered: “You never know. I hope in a good way. I put my heart and soul into this team, and I hope they understand that. You never want to go into a game thinking you’re gonna lose. You wanna win every single game that you step foot on the ice. And I think that’s all I want to do, is win in Pittsburgh. And I hope I was perceived that way.”

Season stats
via hockeydb

• This is a battle of two of the league’s 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’t 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’s true that those numbers have something to do with Skinner’s 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.
• 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 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 Week last week after putting up 10 points (four goals, six assists) in the Oilers’ last three games. He leads the league in assists (34) and ranks second in points (52) through 33 games. He’s also officially the fastest player in the NHL this season, according to both NHL Edge stats and the eye test below:

CONNOR MCDAVID WASTES NO TIME

: @Sportsnet or stream on Sportsnet+ https://t.co/4KjbdjVctF pic.twitter.com/r3Us7zq0cK

— NHL (@NHL) December 14, 2025

• 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’ 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 to reach the milestone should he get on the scoreboard in Pittsburgh.

And now for the Pens​

Projected lines

FORWARDS

Rickard Rakell – Sidney Crosby – Bryan Rust

Rutger McGroarty – Ben Kindel – Justin Brazeau

Ville Koivunen – Tommy Novak – Anthony Mantha

Connor Dewar – Kevin Hayes – Noel Acciari

DEFENSEMEN

Parker Wotherspoon / Erik Karlsson

Ryan Shea / Kris Letang

Brett Kulak or Ryan Graves (?) / Connor Clifton

Goalies: Stuart Skinner, Arturs Silovs

Potential Scratches: Danton Heinen, Jack St. Ivany

IR: Blake Lizotte, Evgeni Malkin, Filip Hallander, Caleb Jones

• 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.

Brett Kulak, acquired by PIT, is a defensive defenceman who generally plays a stabilizing role. Not having a great season and has had his minutes cut, but worth mentioning the Oilers goalies had an .861 save % with him on the ice. #LetsGoPens pic.twitter.com/91EPkQcN3K

— JFresh (@JFreshHockey) December 12, 2025

• Sidney Crosby is just two points from matching Mario Lemieux’s franchise-record career total of 1,723 points.
• The Penguins are heading into tonight on a five-game losing streak (it’s featured some of the worst blown leads in the entire NHL this season, but at least they’ve picked up four points in the 0-1-4 stretch without Evgeni Malkin on the second line and Blake Lizotte when they’re down a man). This marks the first time this team has dropped five straight decisions since October 2024.

Source: https://www.pensburgh.com/general/70331/game-preview-edmonton-oilers-pittsburgh-penguins-12-16-25

 

[Pittsburgh Penguins]

Tristan Jarry vs. Stuart Skinner: Who will play better the rest of the season?

The Pittsburgh Penguins are back in action on Tuesday night, getting a fresh start on a new week after one of the most insane and baffling weeks in franchise history. It is also a fascinating game against the Edmonton Oilers.

Sidney Crosby is closing in on Mario Lemieux’s franchise record for career points.

Oilers superstar Leon Draisaitl is one point away from 1,000 for his career.

Connor McDavid is in town. That is always incredible to watch, because recently he has just dunked all over the Penguins when he plays against them.

The Penguins might do something bizarre that you have never seen before. How big of a lead can they actually surrender? Tune in and find out.

There is also former Penguins goalie Tristan Jarry returning to face his former team, with Stuart Skinner getting a chance to face his former team. We have the rare dual revenge game just a few days after the trade.

It is tremendous theatre.

The Skinner vs. Jarry matchup is interesting not just in the context of Tuesday’s game, but also for the remainder of the season. Edmonton is hoping that one of the most inconsistent goalies in the league can fix its long-standing problem in goal and help get the team over the hump to win a Stanley Cup.

The Penguins are going to try and maintain their surprising start and roll — for now — with a Skinner and Arturs Silovs duo and hope they can play well enough to get them into the playoffs. Or at least hold down the fort until Sergei Murashov is ready and gets his chance.

It is going to be fascinating to see which of these two goalies (Skinner or Jarry) will play better the rest of the way.

What makes it so fascinating is they are so similar in terms of their overall production and consistent inconsistency throughout their careers. Both have shown flashes of brilliance with high peaks. Both have had stunning struggles and low valleys. Skinner actually backstopped a team to a pair of Stanley Cup Finals. Jarry has fumbled in just about every big moment he has played in and tends to wear down as each season goes on.

The simplest way to put it: They are goalies. Run-of-the-mill goalies that are capable of highs and lows at any given moment when you least expect either of them to happen. I don’t know how anybody, from the teams themselves, to media, to fans, to even the players have any idea as to what to expect over the next four months of the regular season from either player. If you think you know, I think you are kidding yourself.

There are maybe — maybe — four or five goalies in the NHL that I confidently trust over an extended period of time to play and produce at a consistently elite level. I trust Connor Hellebuyck. I trust Igor Shesterkin. I trust Andre Vasilevskiy. I think I trust Ilya Sorokin (probably?). That might be it.

Then there is the second tier of goalies that includes Jake Oettinger, Logan Thompson, the current version of Sergei Bobrovsky and maybe Darcy Kuemper. Or maybe Jeremy Swayman? What’s the difference between him and Linus Ullmark? Good luck figuring it out. They are all pretty good goalies with occasional moments of brilliance but are not consistently great like the first group.

Then there is quite literally everybody else.

You can win a Stanley Cup with Jordan Binnington and Adin Hill playing great, and then be forced to convince yourself they are still good when they turn back into Jordan Binnington and Adin Hill. Joey Daccord will play great enough one year to make you pay him big money, and then you are paying big money to Joey Daccord and wondering why you are paying big money to Joey Daccord.

Jarry and Skinner fall into the everybody else category.

Since the start of the 2023-24 season, the most recent extended stretch of hockey we have from both goalies, Jarry has appeared in 102 games with a .900 save percentage and is minus-4.3 goals saved above average. He has a .797 save percentage on high-danger shots in all situations.

Over that same time period Skinner has played in 133 games with an .899 save percentage and is minus-6.1 goals saved above average. He has a .793 save percentage on high-danger shots in all situations.

Virtually the same goalie.

The argument that you might be able to make in Jarry’s favor at this point is that since returning from his trip to the waiver-wire and American Hockey League in the middle of the 2024-25 season he has been the better goalie, and actually pretty decent. Both are statements of fact.

But what does that actually mean? Jarry playing well for a stretch of games is not a surprise. He has done that throughout his career, and at a rate that is not only better than his current level of play, but also at a legitimate All-Star level.

It also never lasts for more than 10-20 games at a time.

I went back over the careers of both players and looked at their rolling 10-game save percentages and compared them to the league averages in each season. Here they are side-by-side.

Skinner has hovered closer to the league average for most of his career. Jarry has had higher peaks, but significantly lower valleys. When he is good, he can be great. When he is bad, he can be awful.

Even when taking into account the declining league-wide save percentage in the NHL, Jarry’s current level of play versus the league average is not even close to what he has done at his best. So why should there be an assumption that this time his improved play is going to be any different long-term?

The answer is you should not. At least not until he proves it over an extend period of time. Maybe this time will be different?

Here they are overlayed on top of each other.

Good luck figuring out which of these guys you can count on.

Jarry has been a little better in the most recent sampling of games, but even those two numbers and performances are starting to regress back toward each other.

Jarry might play the better the rest of the way. It would not surprise me.

Skinner might play better the rest of the way. It would not surprise me.

Both of them will probably be wildly inconsistent and not what either team needs for its current objectives and goals.

We should expect this because that is what their careers have told us to expect from them as goalies.

At the end of the day the Penguins received a comparable goalie with no long-term commitment, opening up a future spot for their top goalie prospect, while also getting a serviceable defenseman this season that could actually be the most impactful of the two players arriving in Pittsburgh as part of the trade (and a future draft pick).

This is not an attempt to hedge bets on a prediction here. It is legitimately impossible to know who is going to play better. Good luck everybody.

Source: https://www.pensburgh.com/analysis/...r-who-will-play-better-the-rest-of-the-season

 

[Pittsburgh Penguins]

Pens Points: Jarry claims victory in return to Pittsburgh

Here are your Pens Points for this Wednesday morning…​

The Pittsburgh Penguins and Edmonton Oilers played an ice hockey game at PPG Paints Arena on Tuesday night. This was a game of great significance for the starting goalies, as both players were on the ice against the team they were traded from just days ago. In the end, however, it was the now-former Penguin, Tristan Jarry, who got the last laugh and helped beat the Penguins 6-4. [Recap]

Jarry, after only being traded this past Friday, had to turn on that competitive switch to play against the only professional team he’s ever known by Tuesday night. With such a quick turnaround to play his former team, he admitted the emotions were still very fresh ahead of the first game as a visitor. [Trib Live]

A trade also means new opportunities for players in their new environment, which is what Stuart Skinner and Brett Kulak are looking forward to as they settle in with the black and gold. [Penguins]

After retiring in the summer of 2024, former Penguins forward Derick Brassard, 38, has come out of retirement to sign with Genève-Servette of Switzerland’s National League. [Trib Live]

News and notes from around the NHL…​

Leon Draisaitl became the first German-born player to reach 1,000 NHL points after he notched an assist in the first period of Tuesday’s game. [Sportsnet]

A few minor waiver moves were made on Monday, which included a former Penguins defenseman. The Boston Bruins added defenseman Vladislav Kolyachonok off waivers from the Dallas Stars. [TSN]

Legendary Alabama Crimson Tide football coach Nick Saban has purchased a minority stake in the Nashville Predators. [ESPN]

Source: https://www.pensburgh.com/news/7043...rs-jarry-nhl-nick-saban-draisaitl-1000-points

 

[Pittsburgh Penguins]

Report: Fenway Sports agrees to sell Penguins to Hoffmann family

It’s been a slow trickle of news and development in the story about the potential sale of the Pittsburgh Penguins. Last out there was that the Hoffmann family’s exclusive window had expired, but it appears they and Fenway Sports kept grinding to reach a deal and reportedly now have one.

Sources say @FenwaySportsGrp has reached an agreement to sell the #NHL’s @penguins to the Hoffmann family, a Chicago-based investment group led by David Hofmann.

Official announcement expected in coming days.

— Frank Seravalli (@frank_seravalli) December 17, 2025

FSG bought the Penguins from the Lemieux Group in a $900 million transaction that came about at the end of 2021. Now about four years later, it looks like FSG is flipping the Pens for what should be a massive windfall. NHL franchise values have skyrocketed lately and they should be the beneficiaries of the timing.

That timing was bad news for the reported interest that Mario Lemieux had in an attempt made to buy back into the Pens franchise. The value has about doubled since he sold, leaving the opportunity tight to get back. It remains unknown how or if the Hoffman’s will incorporate Lemieux, who has had a strained and limited relationship with FSG in recent years.

As far at the fan impact of this sale, that remains to be seen. FSG was never fully welcomed or embraced having taken over from the legendary Lemieux, though they did pump in a large amount of money to renovate areas of PPG Paints Arena and invested heavily to bring Kyle Dubas on board and give him a large budget to expand the franchise’s off ice and managerial levels. Should the Hoffmann’s continue to allow a wide berth to Dubas and the hockey operations folks to continue a move like this might not be a seismic change for fans and consumers. One area to watch will be the potential transfer of Pittsburgh’s regional sports channel, currently owned and operated by FSG and branded as Sportsnet Pittsburgh. Past reports indicated a sale of the team would include the channel.

More details will certainly be coming in the future about this transaction and what changes might be in store for the team as it picks up a third different owner in this decade.

$1.7B sale price on Penguins from Fenway to Hoffmanns

— Elliotte Friedman (@FriedgeHNIC) December 17, 2025

Sounds like the Hoffmann family hasn't yet reached out to Mario Lemieux – who will retain his minority share through the transaction – but that Lemieux could be open to a larger presence around the team under new majority ownership. https://t.co/WXxbT0v1ck

— Frank Seravalli (@frank_seravalli) December 17, 2025

Source: https://www.pensburgh.com/news/70477/report-fenway-sports-agrees-to-sell-penguins-to-hoffman-family