One Night Decides the Whole Trip: Penguins Close California in San Jose Against a Sharks Team That Just Found Its Bite

The California trip was always going to come down to this. Two games, two identical 5-2 scorelines, and two completely different Pittsburgh Penguins teams — the one that dismantled Los Angeles on Saturday night behind a milestone performance for the ages, and the one that wasted a 5-on-3 in Anaheim on Sunday and watched Cutter Gauthier skate away with a hat trick. The Penguins (6-10-2) took Tuesday off to reset, and Wednesday night at 10 p.m. ET at SAP Center (SportsNet Pittsburgh, ESPN+) they close the three-game swing against the San Jose Sharks. Win, and the trip is a 2-1 success that buys some breathing room. Lose, and it is five defeats in six games and a long, quiet flight home. ## The Sharks are not slumping anymore Monday's version of this preview wrote itself: San Jose (now 8-11-1) had lost five straight and owned one of the worst goal differentials in the league. Then Monday night happened. The Sharks beat the New York Islanders 3-2 in an eight-round shootout — the longest in the NHL this season — with rookie Ivar Stenberg scoring in regulation and then scoring the only goal of the shootout, and goaltender Yaroslav Askarov stopping 30 of 32 shots before turning away all eight Islanders attempts in the tiebreaker. The skid is over, the building has a pulse again, and Wednesday's game is San Jose's Military Appreciation night on Veterans Day, so the Shark Tank should be loud. The name Pittsburgh fans know is still the dangerous one. Macklin Celebrini, the 2024 first-overall pick, leads the Sharks with 21 points (7 goals, 14 assists) and was held off the scoresheet Monday — but he still fired six shots and played 25:40, the kind of night that usually precedes a loud one. The hotter hand right now belongs to Stenberg, the 19-year-old second-overall pick from this summer's draft, who has three goals in his last four games and five goals and 11 points on the season. San Jose also got Alexander Wennberg back from injured reserve on Monday. This is a young team that just remembered it can win. ## Muse's answers: new lines, young legs Head coach Dan Muse's response to the Anaheim loss showed up at practice in Los Angeles, where the line rushes told the story. The top line stays together — Rickard Rakell with Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin — but the middle six has been reshuffled, and the promotion goes to the season's unlikeliest finisher. Nick Robertson, tied for the team lead with seven goals and carrying a team-best plus-8 — with, remarkably, zero assists — moves up to the second line alongside Ben Kindel and Egor Chinakhov. Tommy Novak, the other seven-goal man, goes back to center between Justin Brazeau and Ville Koivunen, who skated at practice after missing the Anaheim game with a lower-body injury; Koivunen is still officially listed day-to-day, but all signs point to a return. The fourth line could feature Rutger McGroarty, with DK Pittsburgh Sports reporting the 21-year-old is expected to dress for what would be his third NHL game of the season after tearing up Wilkes-Barre/Scranton (six goals, 12 points in nine AHL games). On the blue line, Trevor van Riemsdyk — on injured reserve with a lower-body injury and projected back right around Wednesday — appeared in the practice pairings, which would be a timely return. One flag: defenseman Sam Girard was absent from that practice and the team has offered no update, so his status for Wednesday is unconfirmed. ## The cracks, by the numbers Whatever lineup Muse dresses, the problems from Anaheim travel with this team. Pittsburgh's team save percentage sits at .863, 28th in the league, and its 3.4 goals against per game ranks 27th — a defense and crease that leak on the same nights. The penalty kill (76.6 percent) gave up three power-play goals to the Ducks while the power play (20.4 percent) blanked on nearly four and a half minutes of second-period time, including a 5-on-3. The Penguins have lost four of their last five, and the starting goaltender for Wednesday had not been announced at draft time — Arturs Silovs took the loss in Anaheim, Sergei Murashov won in Los Angeles, and the rotation trackers lean Silovs, but Muse has not confirmed it. Set against that is the milestone glow that still hangs over this trip. Crosby sits at 1,773 career points, sixth all-time, 25 behind Ron Francis for fifth. Malkin's 1,421 points rank 20th all-time. And Erik Karlsson, who leads Penguins defensemen with 18 points, returns to the building where he spent five seasons in teal. The old guard is producing. The question, as ever this season, is whether anyone else comes with them — which is exactly why Robertson's promotion and McGroarty's recall matter. ## Why this one swings the week The last meeting between these teams is the standing warning: on December 13, 2025, San Jose rallied from 5-1 down in the third period to beat Pittsburgh 6-5 in overtime — the first four-goal comeback in Sharks history. The flip side is that Pittsburgh won its last visit to SAP Center, 3-0 on October 18, 2025. Win Wednesday and the Penguins come home 2-1 on the trip with something to build on before Ottawa visits Saturday (7 p.m. ET). Lose, and Saturday stops being a homecoming and starts being a pressure game for a team sitting near the bottom of the Eastern Conference with a 3-6-1 record in its last 10. **Projection:** Both teams played on the weekend, both give up chances, and both have a young scorer feeling it — but Pittsburgh's top line is the best unit in this game, and the Penguins have made a habit of answering their worst nights with their best. Projection only: Penguins 3-2, with the caveat that runs through everything above — if the penalty kill leaks the way it did in Anaheim, Celebrini and Stenberg will make Pittsburgh pay, and December's comeback script is right there waiting. ## Around Pittsburgh **Steelers:** The NFL trade deadline came and went Tuesday at 4 p.m. ET, and Omar Khan stood pat — Pittsburgh made no trades, at receiver or anywhere else. Two of this morning's rumored targets resolved elsewhere or nowhere: Keenan Allen went from Indianapolis to San Francisco for a 2027 sixth-round pick (per Tom Pelissero), and Jacksonville kept Brian Thomas Jr. after all (per ESPN's Jeremy Fowler). The roster that is 6-2 and tied atop the AFC North is the roster that goes to Cincinnati for Sunday Night Football. **Pitt football:** The Panthers (6-3, 3-3 ACC) host Florida State (4-5, 2-4 ACC) on Friday, November 13, at 7 p.m. ET at Acrisure Stadium on ESPN — Senior Night, off the bye, with the starting quarterback still unnamed after Mason Heintschel's season-ending injury in early October.