Penguins Look to Overtake Rival Capitals for First in East

The Pittsburgh Penguins take on the Washington Capitals for the eighth and final time on Saturday night. The Penguins are winning the season series 4-2 and won the most recent matchup, 5-4 on Thursday night. The Capitals are slight favorites in this one.

Sportsbook Odds Analysis

The game opened with the Capitals as favorites at -106 and the line has since moved to the -106 to -115 range. The total opened at 5.5 and is now at 6 across the board with even odds on the OVER and UNDER.

Pittsburgh News & Notes

The Pittsburgh Penguins have surged up the standings in the East Division and find themselves tied with Washington for first, though they have played one extra game.

Captain Sidney Crosby has had an underrated season for one of the greatest players in league history. Crosby is tied for seventh in league scoring with 20 goals and 56 points in 50 games. He also has 27 points in his last 20 games.

The team’s surge up the standings not only correlates with Crosby’s hot streak, the team has played well in several key possession metrics recently. Since the beginning of April, no team has more even strength goals than the Penguins. They also rank twelfth in total scoring chances in that same span.

In net, the two Penguins goalies have completely turned around their season after a slow start to the year. Tristan Jarry is now 22-9-3 on the season with a .910 save percentage while Casey DeSmith is 11-6 with a .913.

Washington News & Notes

The Washington Capitals are poised for another deep playoff run as the top team in maybe the league’s most difficult division. The Capitals are the highest scoring team overall in the league this season with 175 goals, tied with Pittsburgh. And at even strength, no team has more goals than the Caps. They do, however, rank just 21^st in high danger scoring chances, meaning they have quite the group of talented goal scorers to put the puck in the net that often without a ton of great chances.

Alex Ovechkin leads that group of talented goal scorers as Ovie leads the team once again in goals with 24 in 43 games. Nicklas Backstrom leads the way in points with 51 in 51 games. Defenseman John Carlson is the third member of the trio at the top of the Caps’ list of leading scorers. He was 42 points in 49 games.

Unfortunately for the Capitals, both Ovechkin and Carlson are questionable for Saturday’s game as both are dealing with lower body injuries.