Pittsburgh Penguins plays host to New Jersey Devils in the fifth of their six scheduled meetings
The first game of Friday will be played at the Consol Energy Center as Pittsburgh Penguins play host to New Jersey Devils.
This will be the fifth out of the six scheduled meetings between the two teams during the course of the season. Both teams have won two games each out of the four games that have taken place so far.
Penguins won the first two games, 3-1 and 2-1, respectively. However, Devils won the last two games, 2-0 and 2-1, respectively.
Penguins is only four points behind Flyers for the Eastern Conference lead. Despite the fact that Penguins had players like Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin on the injury list, it managed to win games regularly and is in a strong position.
Despite winning the game against Flyers, Penguins still isn’t in a position to take over the Conference lead from them.
Flyers has two games in hand and four points going for its advantage.
The last game between the two teams saw the game level on 1-1 but Penguins managed to emerge as winners of the game after a shootout.
"It's always good to come into this barn and get two points. Hopefully we can do the same next week", forward, Jordan Staal, said, referring to a rematch between the teams on Tuesday in Pittsburgh.
Penguins has played 74 games during the course of the season out of which it has won 43 games in regulation time and eight games in overtime to score a total of 94 points.
Devils has played 73 games during the season out of which it has won 34 games in regulation time and four games in overtime to score a total of 72 points.
Penguins occupy the fourth spot in the Eastern Conference while Devils the 12th spot.
A win for Devils is more important as they look to make their way into the playoff’s cut.
Though things were against Devils in the first half of the season, they piled up some decent results to keep themselves in hopes of the playoff’s cut.
Devils was one of the most dominating teams in the second half of the season but its recent form has hurt it a lot. Devils has lost three of its last four games and was up against Bruins in its last game which Devils lost by 4-1.
"We can't take as many penalties as we did tonight", forward, Brian Rolston, said. "I really thought we had a lot of good things going in the first period. They made it 1-1 and we were killing penalties from then on in".
Tags: