Training camp is upon us and our first game is next week. Are we all excited for the Flyers/Penguins matchup????
Newly acquired Kasperi Kapanen is slotted to skate on the first line with Sidney Crosby and Jason Zucker, granted his immigration issues are cleared up. Last season, Kapanen played 69 games and tallied 36 points. He scored 13 goals and had 23 assists. Crosby played 41 games with 16 goals, 31 assists to tally 47 points. Zucker split the year playing with Minnesota and Pittsburgh. During his tenure the Wild last season he played in 45 games, potted 14 goals and chipped in 15 assists to tally 29 points. With Pittsburgh Zucker played in 15 games as he finished with six goals and six assists to tally 12 points. Pittsburgh’s Goaltender Tristan Jarry had 33 wins, three of which were shutouts. Jarry’s Goals Against Average (GAA) was 2.43, and his Save Percentage was .921.
After a little digging, I found a couple articles on the projected lines, only time will tell if these are accurate. For Pittsburgh it is Zuker-Crosby-Kapanen, Guentzel-Malkin-Rust, Tanev-McCann-Lafferty, Aston-Reese-Blueger-Sceviour. Projected defensive lines are to be Dumoulin-Letang, Pettersson-Marino, Matheson-Johnson* (*granted he is still with Pittsburgh). Goaltender is projected to be Tristan Jarry. Pittsburgh’s top line points are as follows: Sidney Crosby 41 games played, 16 goals, 31 assists for 47 points, Jason Zucker (Wild) 45 games played, 14 goals, 15 assists for 29 points (Penguins) 15 games played, six goals, six assists for 12 points, Kasperi Kapanen 69 games played, 13 goals, 23 assists for 36 points.
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Philadelphia’s projected lines are to be as follows: Giroux-Voracek-Couturier, Farabee-Hayes-Konecny, Lindblom-Laughton/Frost-Aubé-Kubel, van Riemsdyk-Frost/Laughton-Raffl **Patrick (Could be 3C or 4C and this would throw these projected lines off). Projected defensive lines are as follows: Provorov-Myers, Sanheim-Gustafsson, Braun-Gostisbehere **Hägg. Philadelphia’s top line has better numbers than Pittsburgh. Claude Giroux played 69 games with 21 goals, 32 assists for 53 points. Jakub Voracek played 69 games with 12 goals, 44 assists for 56 points. Sean Couturier played 69 games with 22 goals and 37 assists for 59 points. Goaltender Carter Hart had 22 wins with one shutout. He finished with a 2.42 GAA, and .914 Save Percentage.
So again, who’s ready for the matchup???
