Over the past two decades, the Pittsburgh Penguins have not played many games without Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin.
They found themselves in that position Friday — and they passed the test without their two veteran standouts. Now they will try to ride that momentum into a Saturday road matchup against the Philadelphia Flyers.
Pittsburgh owns a 3-0-1 record in its past four games, most recently beating the host New York Rangers 3-2 on Friday. Crosby sat out with an upper-body injury after playing the previous 229 consecutive contests. Malkin is listed as week-to-week because of a lower-body injury.
It was unclear whether Crosby would be ready to rejoin the lineup on Saturday.
“Right now, we’re just taking it one day at a time when it comes to Crosby’s situation, but it’s encouraging he was on the ice (Friday) for the optional game-day skate,” Sullivan said of Crosby, who leads the team in assists (41) and points (58). “Obviously, he’s an important player for us. When he’s not in our lineup, he’s a hard guy to replace. He’s the heartbeat of this team.”
Malkin is having a quiet season by his standards, although he still has 34 points in 47 games.
In the absence of the two superstars, the Penguins continue to rely on players such as winger Rickard Rakell, who has scored in each of the last two games, and goalie Alex Nedeljkovic, who has given up a total of eight goals in his past five contests.
“We’ve put ourselves in a spot to climb back to .500 now,” Nedeljkovic said of the 23-24-9 Penguins. “Gives us a chance to (get there Saturday). So, we’re hoping to get the job done.”
The Flyers, meanwhile, are the only team below the Penguins in the Metropolitan Division standings. Philadelphia has lost five straight games (0-4-1) and has managed a total of five goals in that stretch, which included a run of three consecutive shutout defeats.
The Flyers battled hard against Alex Ovechkin and the Washington Capitals on Thursday but came up short in a 4-3 defeat.
“I thought we played a (heck) of a game. Just a couple breaks here and there,” said Philadelphia’s Tyson Foerster, who has scored in two straight games.
Flyers coach John Tortorella — a calmer version of the fiery coach from earlier in his career — is trying to remain poised despite the lengthy skid.
“There’s a lot of encouraging things in this God-awful losing streak we’re in,” Tortorella said. “I still think we have a lot of meaningful games left.”
The Saturday game is the final contest for both teams before the league takes a two-week break for the 4 Nations Face-Off. Philadelphia and Pittsburgh don’t resume their schedule until Feb. 22, and then they play each other twice before the end of the month.
The Penguins won the first matchup between the teams this season 7-3 on Dec. 23. Pittsburgh scored four first-period goals — three of which were set up by Crosby — and then the Penguins captain added an empty-netter in the third period.
–Field Level Media
