WHO: Pittsburgh Penguins (0-1-0, 0 points) @ Detroit Red Wings (0-0-0, 0 points)

When: 8:00 p.m. ET (schedule change! Originally started at 7:00 a.m., game time has been pushed back an hour to ease traffic since Detroit is hosting a so-called “postseason baseball game” today. Doesn't fit the bill from Pittsburgh)

Here's how to watch: Televised locally on Sportsnet Pittsburgh and Bally Sports Detroit, streaming on ESPN+

The path of the pens lies before us: The Pens will stay on the road and travel briefly from Detroit to Toronto on Saturday evening to take part in Hockey Night in Canada. They're still north of the border to play in Montreal on Monday and then return to Pittsburgh to host the Sabers next Wednesday.

Enemy bar: The Red Wings were able to relax at home last night while the Pens played the Rangers. This is Detroit's season opener, they will stay at home for their next game on Saturday when Nashville visits.

Season series: Detroit will make its only visit of the season to Pittsburgh in just a few weeks on November 13th. Then the Pens return to the Motor City for a Dec. 31 game (and a terrible 8 p.m. start time!) that will keep them on the ice almost until the end of the new year. This completes the three-game season series for the two possible playoff contenders who will not play directly in the 2025 portion of the 2024-25 season.

Get to know the Red Wings

Projected lines

FORWARD

Alex DeBrincat – Dylan Larkin – Lucas Raymond

Vladimir Tarasenko – JT Compher – Patrick Kane

Michael Rasmussen – Andrew Copp – Christian Fischer

Tyler Motte – Joe Veleno – Jonatan Berggren

DEFENDER

Ben Chiarot / Moritz Seider

Simon Edvinsson / Jeff Petry

Olli Maatta / Erik Gustafsson

Goalkeeper: Ville Husso, Cam Talbot and Alex Lyon

Possible scratches: Albert Johansson

IR: none

—Is this the team that can break Detroit's franchise-high streak of eight consecutive seasons without making the playoffs? They narrowly failed in the 2023-24 season (losing in a tiebreaker to Washington for last place) and are bringing back largely the same group. There were minor changes; A puck-moving defenseman (Gustafsson) is new, replacing a departed one (Shayne Gotisbehere) and an experienced offensive winger (Tarasenko) is new, replacing a counterpart (David Perron) and these are the big changes for the Red Wings this year ( They also say goodbye to Daniel Sprong, like so many NHL teams and Jake Walman).

— The Red Wings are among the growing number of NHL teams retaining three goaltenders out of fear that waivers will take away a goaltender in the 32-team league, where goaltending capacity can be tight. They had the agreement all last season and it doesn't look like anything will change. It was a difficult task to find a consistently good game between the three.

Player statistics (from 2023-24)

(above hockeydb)

—Dylan Larkin isn't an alpha star in the NHL who burns as much as the MVP players (McDavid, MacKinnon, Kucherov, etc.), but Larkin has averaged a point per game in each of the last three seasons. The Red Wings could have easily qualified for the playoffs had Larkin not been injured in the second half of last season.

—Pittsburgh needs to pay attention to that first line, last season Larkin (1G+5A in just two games), Raymond (5G+1A in three games) and DeBrincat (2G+4A in three) ate it up. Their pace and skill presented a lot of problems, and limiting the outcome of yesterday's game for the Pens will be a top priority tonight.

And now to the pens

Projected lines

FORWARD

Anthony Beauvillier – Sidney Crosby – Rickard Rakell

Michael Bunting – Evgeni Malkin – Drew O'Connor

Rutger McGroarty – Lars Eller – Jesse Puljujarvi

Kevin Hayes – Cody Glass – Noel Acciari

DEFENDER

Marcus Pettersson / Erik Karlsson

Matt Grzelcyk / Kris Letang

Ryan Graves / Jack St. Ivany

Goalkeeper: Joel Blomqvist or Tristan Jarry (played last night)

Possible scratches: Ryan Shea, Valtteri Puustinen

IR: Matt Nieto (knee surgery), Bryan Rust, Alex Nedeljkovic, Blake Lizotte, Vasily Ponomarev

—The Pens play a lot in the first few weeks of the season, but this is the only back-to-back game through October 25th and 26th. The team hasn't officially said which goalie will play tonight, but there are signs that Joel Blomqvist will see his first NHL game. Last night against New York, they decided to keep Tristan Jarry in the game to weather the whole storm, presumably to save Blomqvist from being baptized into the NHL that way, but it also leaves him the goaltender , who is prepared for this game.

—Kyle Dubas said in his preseason interview that the team needed to pay particular attention to slowing Rust's return because his competitive tendencies would cause him to rush back and potentially re-aggravate his injury. After a lifeless 6-0 defeat, the Pens need Rust back as quickly as possible. Of course, we can't speed up the healing process given the long season ahead of us – but they need him back literally yesterday and with all hands on deck. It will be interesting to see when Rust is back in the lineup.

Milestone clock

• Evgeni Malkin is two goals away from 500 in his career
• Malkin is also just two assists away from 800
• Add that up and you see that Malkin is four points away from 1,300
• Sidney Crosby is also four points away from a round number (in his case, 1,600 career points).