Game Preview: Penguins vs. Lightning

Check out our partners at Raw Charge for the Tampa perspective of the game. They do a great job and it's worth your time.

It's a hockey night in Pittsburgh for a sort of rare Sunday *night* home game for the Pittsburgh Penguins. The high flying Tampa Bay Lightning come to town.

Tampa has a top 10 power play and penalty kill, and the Penguins won't have Evgeni Malkin, so the battle of the special teams may likely determine who wins tonight.

The Penguins lines today in practice were as follows:

Chris Kunitz - Sidney Crosby - James Neal
Beau Bennett - Brandon Sutter - Pascal Dupuis
Matt Cooke - Dustin Jeffrey - Tyler Kennedy
Tanner Glass - Joe Vitale - Craig Adams

That, essentially, puts all of the eggs in the Crosby line's basket, but all things considered, it's not a bad basket to be in. Without Malkin the Pens are a one-line team for offensive production, but they still have a powerful top line.

Welcome to the lineup, Dustin Jeffrey. There's no silver lining in Malkin's injury, but at least Jeffrey gets a well-deserved spot in the lineup. It'll be interesting to see if he can add anything, and his conversion of a nice Cooke pass shows that they might have some chemistry.

Finally, check this piece out on Dave Andreychuk and his hall of fame candidacy. It's an interesting argument- he's got a TON of goals and for years was a very productive player. But at no time was he really a dominant player or one of the absolute top forwards in the league. I can see both sides of the case, but his career totals speak for themselves, I think there should be a place in the HOF for him due to his power play prowess.