The Pittsburgh Penguins (29-32-10) are not going into the night quietly. They are picking up wins against opponents who dominated them most of the season, earning their first victory against the Columbus Blue Jackets on Friday night by a 6-3 score.

Earlier in the campaign, the Blue Jackets picked up 6-2 and 4-3 (SO) wins, but the Penguins were on a different level Friday. They jumped out to a 1-0 lead and never looked back as Sidney Crosby inches closer to establishing a new NHL record. 

Let's discuss Pittsburgh's latest triumph. 

Nedeljkovic Shines in Return

When Tristan Jarry came back from the AHL, he went on a four-game win streak, all but stealing the crease back from Alex Nedeljkovic. After losing to the New York Islanders, head coach Mike Sullivan gave Nedeljkovic his first start in 14 days, and he didn't disappoint with 44 saves, hardly showing any signs of rust.

Penguins: Sidney Crosby's Chase Of Wayne Gretzky's NHL Point-Per-Game RecordPittsburgh Penguins captain Sidney Crosby is on pace to break a Wayne Gretzky record many people thought would never fall; most seasons (19) averaging a point-per-game average. 

Last year, Nedeljkovic led the late-season playoff push that ended short of the cut-off, but he's been the savior in the crease this season. Because of his performance on Friday, there's a new goalie controversy building in Pittsburgh. Which netminder should start against the top team in the Atlantic Division, the Florida Panthers, on Sunday?

Nedeljkovic showed, even with time off, that he's locked in, so Sullivan should ride the hot hand into another marquee matchup.

Number 29

Bokondji Imama scored his first goal of the season midway through the second period and came within an assist from completing a Gordie Howe hat trick as he fought Mathieu Olivier in the first.

By lighting the lamp at 8:15, Imama became the 29th different Penguins scorer this season, which leads the league in the category.

Can Penguins Achieve Goal Scoring Feat For Second Time In Crosby Era?Pittsburgh Penguins prospect Joona Koppanen scored his first NHL goal on Tuesday night against the New York Islanders.

Moreover, Imama, who has skated in only 14 games this season, scored his first NHL goal since Apr. 23, 2022, when he was a member of the Arizona Coyotes. 

In 24 games with the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins, he's scored three goals with five points and 47 penalty minutes. Unafraid to mix it up, Imama has 16 penalty minutes in the NHL this season and has made the most of his limited opportunities in black and gold. 

Will Malkin Finish the Season on a Tear?

Ahead of the Blue Jackets game, Evgeni Malkin had one goal in the previous nine contests, with just two assists for three points and a minus-5 rating.

He poked home the first goal on Friday and looked energized, finishing the evening with four shots on goal, his first four-shot game since Nov. 13, 2024, against the Detroit Red Wings. 

'He Loves Being A Penguin': Unlikely Hero Emerges As Penguins Defeat Blue Jackets, 6-3In what was a must-win game for both of the teams on the ice Friday night, the Pittsburgh Penguins sure came ready to play.

Even though it is one goal, it is the type of play that could spark Malkin to finish the year and possibly push him to aim for his 16th-goal campaign since he currently sits at 14. Moreover, the future Hall of Famer needs only five more points to finish with 50.

Ultimately, Malkin needs nine points in the final 11 games to reach 1,350 in his career, which would be a fantastic achievement in an unusual down here for the Penguins' oldest player. Despite all the ups and downs, Malkin still has a chance to prove he is one of the NHL's most feared forwards. 

The St. Louis Blues are facing off against the Chicago Blackhawks on March 22. The Blues' goal will be to stay hot after winning each of their last four games.

This matchup will be an emotional one for Blackhawks forward Pat Maroon, as it will be the last time the St. Louis native will play at the Enterprise Center. The former Blue told Darren Pang before the contest that he is planning to retire at the end of the season.

Maroon, 36, was a part of the Blues' 2019 Stanley Cup championship team, where he emerged as a fan favorite. In 74 regular-season games with the Blues that season, he had 10 goals, 28 points, and 135 hits. He also had three goals and seven points in 26 playoff games for the Blues during their 2019 championship run.

In 839 career NHL games over 14 seasons split between the Anaheim Ducks, Edmonton Oilers, New Jersey Devils, Blues, Tampa Bay Lightning, Minnesota Wild, Boston Bruins, and Blackhawks, he has 125 goals, 320 points, 1,071 penalty minutes, and 1,583 hits. He also has three Stanley Cups on his resume. It's been a great career for the former sixth-round pick. 

Recent Blues News 

Former Blues Forward Breaks Single-Season KHL Goal Record

Blues Made Right Call Not Trading Brayden Schenn

Blues Coach Provides Encouraging Colton Parayko Injury Update

Blues Breakout Star Is Continuing To Thrive

Blues Surging Forward Nearing New Impressive Career-High

During this past season, Nashville Predators defenseman Jeremy Lauzon made NHL history. The 6-foot-3 defenseman set an NHL record by finishing the campaign with  383 hits in 79 games.

However, Lauzon's hit record has now been beaten by one of his former Nashville teammates - Kiefer Sherwood.

During the Vancouver Canucks' March 22 contest against the New York Rangers, Sherwood threw his 384th hit of the campaign. It took the Columbus, Ohio native 66 games to set this new NHL record. 

Sherwood spent the 2022-23 and 2023-24 seasons as a member of the Predators. In 100 games with the Central Division squad, he had 17 goals, 40 points, 337 hits, and a plus-21 rating. 

Sherwood's time with the Predators ended this past off-season when he signed a two-year, $3 million contract with the Canucks. In 65 games this season with Vancouver, he has set new career highs with 15 goals and 29 points. 

Recent Predators News 

Former Predators Forward Impressing With New Team

Predators' Steven Stamkos Passes Legend On All-Time Goals List

New Predators Forward Could Become Nice Surprise

Flyers suffer 9th loss in last 10 games after good effort is spoiled by quick OT originally appeared on NBC Sports Philadelphia

The Flyers have taken their fair share of gut punches as this 2024-25 season stumbles to the finish line.

They took another one Saturday afternoon with a 3-2 overtime loss to the Stars at American Airlines Center.

Dallas scored the winner just nine seconds into the bonus session.

The Flyers fell behind 2-0 for the fourth straight game, but second-period goals from Travis Konecny and Ryan Poehling erased the deficit. John Tortorella’s club went to OT for the 20th time this season and dropped to 11-9 after regulation.

The Flyers (28-34-9) have lost four straight. They’ve had five losing streaks of four or more games this season.

They’re 1-8-1 over their last 10 games, a stretch in which they’ve scored just 1.50 goals per game and given up 3.80. They’ve also lost 17 of their last 23 games (6-14-3).

The Flyers were swept by the Stars (44-21-4) in their two-game regular-season series. They lost to Dallas, 4-1, in January at the Wells Fargo Center, a “sh–ty” game that elicited boos.

• Ivan Fedotov’s start Saturday lasted only one period.

The Stars scored two goals on their first two shots. They had just three shots in the first period but went into intermission with a 2-0 lead.

Samuel Ersson took over for Fedotov at the start of the second period. He made 15 saves on 16 shots. His lone blemish came in overtime when he was a bit lackadaisical playing the puck outside of his crease and Thomas Harley made him pay.

The Flyers entered Saturday with an NHL-worst .875 save percentage. Last season, they lost Carter Hart in January because of the Hockey Canada sexual assault case. They finished tied with the Senators for the league’s worst save percentage at .884.

“When Carter left, that threw this into turmoil,” Tortorella said two and a half months ago. “It is what it is, we’ve lived with it, we continue to live with it and we do the best we can.”

Dallas netminder Jake Oettinger stopped 22 of the Flyers’ 24 shots.

Konecny scored a huge goal for the Flyers and himself. It was his second marker in the last 24 games and it gave the Flyers some offensive life. Poehling then tallied his third goal in the last five games off an assist by Matvei Michkov, who ended a six-game slump of no points.

Overall, the Flyers have put together back-to-back competitive performances. They outshot the NHL-leading Capitals 28-16 two days ago, but lost, 3-2.

• The Flyers are five points up on the Sabres, who occupy last place in the Eastern Conference.

Buffalo, however, has played three fewer games. The clubs also have two head-to-head matchups left.

In the NHL standings, three Western Conference teams are below the Flyers: the Predators, Blackhawks and Sharks.

• The Flyers’ power play went 0 for 3, dropping to 0 for 28 in March. In the last 27 games, it’s 5 for 62.

The Flyers are at 13.9 percent on the season.

• Garnet Hathaway (undisclosed) and Rasmus Ristolainen (upper body) remained out.

• The Flyers are right back at it Sunday when they visit the Blackhawks (3 p.m. ET/NBCSP).

Tortorella’s club is 1-9-1 in the second game of back-to-back sets and has been outscored 45-25.

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Who doesn't like a good playoff race?

With 15 games left in the regular season, it's coming down to the wire for these Los Angeles Kings, their potential home ice, and an exciting prospect of winning their first-ever Pacific Division title. While the ladder is maybe a little far-reaching, winning second in the division for the first time since their return to the playoffs (2021-22) and, realistically, a finish for the first time not named third place will be a refreshing recourse that the team has finally shown some progress towards an organizational and overarching goal for this franchise to succeed past the regular season.

Success in the postseason will go through two teams. 

The Vegas Golden Knights sit in first place and have been excellent all year, but they have shown signs of being beatable, enhanced by a 1-3-0 record against these very Kings. A playoff matchup would be a rare sight. Their inaugural season is the only time the Knights have played the Kings in the postseason, which would conclude in one of the closest sweeps in postseason history (still a sweep at the end of the day). It changed the future landscape for the Kings dramatically, while the Knights continued to be a perennial heavyweight in the Western Conference year after year.

Their inception into the league is a massive success story for potential new teams to break into the league, amplified by the Sin City-based teaming being a recent championship squad brimmed with talent after what feels like 'all these years.' There's a well-coached and very good team there, even if they didn't make their typical splash at the deadline as usual. Instead, they made a feel-good move, acquiring and then pairing Reily Smith with the fresh-off IR William Karlsson, reuniting the two original 'misfits,' as they call them in Vegas.

On the other hand, the Oilers stand as the Kings' kryptonite, the death knell, the superfluous hangman for the Kings regarding their recent three seasons of postseason disarray. It's as if the Kings caught the Oilers in the upswing towards their window of contention while the Kings muddled with the remaining years of a facade, a 'ready-now' roster. After their semi-final game seven loss to the Ducks in 2016-17, these Oilers have rebuilt around the four of: 20-year-old Connor McDavid, 21-year-old Leon Draisaitl, 23-year-old Ryan Nugent-Hopkins, and 21-year-old Darnell Nurse. The Kings, on the flip side, tried to make one last dance with their championship holders as previously mentioned against Vegas in 2018.

With the departure from grace, they spent a chunk of the remaining years of Drew Doughty and Anze Kopitar's prime doing a quick rebuild. With the two former stars outside their primes, management hurled the team back towards contention pursuit despite some massive pitfalls in their schematic. Even with the blatant flaws of the King's roster construction and implementation, the two teams have, for the first time in Rob Blake's tenure, been neck and neck this season, with the Kings holding a more favorable winning percentage with games in hand. How that changes the postseason fate, despite organizational claims that the two teams were close last season: "we were right there," will unfold next month, as the two teams will likely clash for a fourth straight postseason.

It's never a 'hurrah' moment when two of the game's best ambassadors succumb to injury. How the Oilers will do in a critical time without their two most significant drivers of their team's offense (both players having 191 touches on the team's 224 total goals scored this season or 85.2%) will either be their downfall or having to play the Kings in LA for potential games 1,2,5, and 7. This is also a team that chipped away many of its pieces that took the team to the Finals, which includes Kings' very own Warren Foegele. They lost two excellent players to offer sheets, who, in Dylan Holloway, has become one of the best five-on-five-point producers in hockey.

Sounds like #Oilers have imaging scheduled today for Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl to better understand severity of injuries and timelines to return to play.

— Frank Seravalli (@frank_seravalli) March 21, 2025

Now, that being said, I'm not saying the Kings have the complete edge over the Oilers. Home ice may not mean anything when the Oilers can still deploy 97-29 at will, despite their forward group being as thin as it's possibly ever been in the McDavid-Draisaitl contention era. The Kings have no match for that, even with a tantalizing prospect of having a third go-to center emerging in Quinton Byfield.

I am however, conveying that this is as close as the two teams have been since their first collision in 2021-22. Home ice could tilt things even more toward the Kings, and there's a legit chance they can make it happen. This is the closest the Kings have come to becoming a coin flip when facing either the Knights or the dreaded Oilers.

It's a cautious time in LA sure, but maybe, just maybe, some optimism for once.