Columbus @ Pittsburgh preview

Last Meeting ( Sep 21, 2019 ) Pittsburgh 1, Columbus 3

The Pittsburgh Penguins hope to rebound from a very disappointing season opener when they host the Columbus Blue Jackets on Saturday in a Metropolitan Division matchup. The Penguins gave up 41 shots and did not score at even strength while dropping a 3-1 decision against Buffalo on Thursday, with former Hart Trophy winner Evgeni Malkin telling reporters the team needs to play faster and be more hungry.

“We just weren’t good enough,” Pittsburgh coach Mike Sullivan told reporters after the loss. "I don’t think you can just sit and point at any one area. I think it was a lot of areas of our game where we just didn’t have an element of consistency. I don’t think there was cooperative effort. It’s hard to play this game in the absence of it.” The Penguins will look to avoid losing their first two games for the second time in three campaigns when they take on Columbus, which opened its season Friday with a 4-1 home loss to Toronto after giving up a pair of power-play tallies. Cam Atkinson scored the only goal with the man advantage for the Blue Jackets, who saw leading point producer Artemi Panarin and former Vezina Trophy winner Sergei Bobrovsky leave via free agency in the offseason. “We had good jump, good energy, good pace,” Columbus' Boone Jenner said in a television interview after the game. “There’s some things we want to clean up, obviously. … We’ve just got to learn from it and move on.”

TV: 7 p.m. ET, FS Ohio (Columbus), AT&T SportsNet-Pittsburgh

ABOUT THE BLUE JACKETS (0-1-0): Atkinson, who recorded a career-high and team-best 41 goals last season, matched the NHL record set by Mud Bruneteau (1940-45) and tied by Yvan Cournoyer (1973-78) by scoring in his sixth consecutive season opener). Gustav Nyquist posted a minus-1 rating without registering a shot in his first game with the team while Jakob Lilja and the 20-year-old Emil Bemstrom each made their NHL debuts on Friday. Joonas Korpisalo turned aside 25 shots in his first game as Columbus’ No. 1 goalie and will be backed up by Latvian rookie Elvis Merzlikins, who may make his first start in the finale game of a back-to-back set.

ABOUT THE PENGUINS (0-1-0): Malkin scored the only goal for Pittsburgh on the power play and registered four shots - two shy of Justin Schultz's total in the season opener. Captain Sidney Crosby, who suffered a foot injury while blocking a shot in the final preseason game last Saturday, assisted on Malkin's goal to tie Larry Murphy for 42nd place on the all-time list with 1,217 points. Alex Galchenyuk recorded one shot and three hits in his debut with Pittsburgh on Thursday while Brandon Tanev registered three shots, three blocks and five hits in his first game with team after signing as a free agent.

OVERTIME

1. Blue Jackets F Josh Anderson, who scored a career-high 27 goals last season, registered six shots and two blocks in the season opener.

2. Penguins D Kris Letang also recorded an assist and blocked three shots but was credited with a game-high four giveaways.

3. Pittsburgh had won eight straight regular-season meetings before Columbus posted a 4-1 victory on March 9.

PREDICTION: Penguins 5, Blue Jackets 2