Game Preview: Pittsburgh Penguins @ Edmonton Oilers 1/22/2026

Who:Pittsburgh Penguins (24-14-11, 59 points, 2nd place Metropolitan Division) @ Edmonton Oilers (25-18-8, 58 points, 2nd place Pacific Division)

When: 9:00 p.m. eastern

How to Watch: Locally broadcast on Sportsnet Pittsburgh, SN1 and TVAS in Canada, streaming on ESPN+

Pens’ Path Ahead: It’s been a lot of action lately, after tonight the Pens only have to play one time (Sunday in Vancouver, 6:00pm eastern start) over the period from Jan 23-28. A week from today the Pens are back in PPG Paints Arena against Chicago to kick off a frantic finish of playing five games over just an eight-day stretch prior to the NHL’s Olympic break.

Opponent Track: It’s been feast or famine lately for the Oilers: they lost 1-0 last Thursday to the Islanders then responded for big 6-0 and 5-0 wins over the weekend. That was followed up by a 2-1 regulation loss at home to New Jersey on Tuesday night in their previous outing. Overall in calendar 2026, the Oilers only have only won five out of 10 games (a 5-3-2 record) despite out-scoring their competition by a lofty combined margin of 34-21.

Season Series: The Oilers won 6-4 over Pittsburgh back on December 16th, just days after the teams swapped starting goalies with one another. Tristan Jarry picked up the win for Edmonton, stopping 26 of 30 shots. The Oilers had more luck on their former goalie, toasting Stuart Skinner five times on just 22 shots. Connor McDavid (2G+2A) and Leon Draisaitl (4A) had four-point games.

Hidden Stat: Pittsburgh has a 1-8-0 record against the Oilers in the decade of the 2020’s by a combined score of 46-18. That averages to a score of 5.1 -2.

Getting to know the Oilers

Projected lines

FORWARDS

Vasily Podkolzin – Connor McDavid – Zach Hyman

Trent Frederic – Ryan Nugent-Hopkins – Jack Roslovic

Isaac Howard- rotation- Matt Savoie

Mattias Janmark – Curtis Lazar – Andrew Mangiapane

DEFENSEMEN

Mattias Ekholm / Evan Bouchard

Darnell Nurse / Ty Emberson

Jake Walman / Spencer Stastney

Alec Regul

Goalies: Tristan Jarry and Connor Ingram

Potential scratches: Kasperi Kapanen (injured), Calvin Pickard

Injured Reserve: Adam Henrique

Non-roster reserve: Leon Draisaitl (personal)

• Draisaitl has missed the last three games to travel back to Germany to attend to a ‘family illness’. All the best to him there in what sounds like a tough situation. It was said on Tuesday the star forward would be back ‘this week’ without specifying if that meant against the Penguins tonight or for Edmonton’s next game on Saturday. Haven’t seen much as of press time to clarify that, so we’ll wait and see on that front.
• I feel like the Oilers use play 11 forward/7 defenseman lineups more often than anyone, and often times with success since usually they can toss extra shifts to McDavid/Draisaitl and become even more dangerous than having a random forward play that time instead. Obviously they haven’t had Draisaitl available for that in recent days, having McDavid is often enough. He played 25:17 in the loss to NJD and leads all forwards in the whole NHL in ice time by averaging 22:57 per game. Enough can’t be said about how much he can impact a game, starting with the entire basic lineup structure of a team.
• Podkolzin has been coming along riding shotgun lately, he was scoreless last game against NJD but recorded four points in four games before that, and has seven points overall in his previous nine games.
• Hyman is always that dude when it comes to playing with McDavid as well. Hyman has put up 7G+2A over his last eight games.

Season stats
via hockeydb

• Trading Skinner (and seeing Jarry get hurt days later) paved the way for Connor Ingram to get called up from the AHL Many expected Ingram to get a chance with Edmonton at some point this season, it ended up being perhaps a little ahead of most expectations. Ingram is a redemption case, looking to restart his career after some off-ice struggles and difficulties. It’s early yet, but so far Ingram looks like the best performing goalie the Oilers have seen in quite some time. Indirectly Edmonton has trading Skinner away to thank for getting to this point now, ironically enough.
• That said, Jarry hasn’t been so bad himself — if you allow some grace for the four weeks he missed with injury. He’s won four out of his six starts and mostly kept the goals down while in there. As always the dependability and availability questions never truly go all the way away but so far, mostly so good for him out there.
• It looks like a couple of injuries have been the latest twist in the apparent cosmic mistiming that’s followed Kasperi Kapanen around. Every time it looks like he’s been about to really make it and establish himself it’s been something different to come in to trip him off course.
• Trent Frederic still has seven more seasons of this contract after this one. It’s a relatively low cap hit ($3.85 million) but my goodness what a tough one that looks like already.

Key to the game: Please Connor, have a heart and stop hurting the Penguins

Maybe begging Connor McDavid to stop picking on the Penguins will help? Nothing else has worked, aside from the 2020-21 season when there was no PIT/EDM games due to the scheduling format. His stat-line against the Pens in the last six years is just disgusting.

That’s 27 points over 11 games against the Penguins, omitting the 2019-20 season where he somehow went point-less in two games. McDavid’s been literally unstoppable more often than not, including in last month’s four-point game back in Pittsburgh.

And now for the Pens

Projected lines 

FORWARDS

Rickard Rakell – Sidney Crosby – Bryan Rust

Egor Chinakhov  – Tommy Novak – Evgeni Malkin

Anthony Mantha – Ben Kindel – Justin Brazeau

Connor Dewar – Blake Lizotte – Noel Acciari

DEFENSEMEN

Brett Kulak / Parker Wotherspoon

Ryan Shea / Jack St. Ivany

Ryan Graves / Connor Clifton

Goalies:  Arturs Silovs and Stuart Skinner

Potential Scratches: Kris Letang, Kevin Hayes, Ilya Solovyov

IR: Erik Karlsson, Filip Hallander, Caleb Jones

• Lifting this mostly from last night’s recap since it’s timely for today: Kris Letang was only briefly on the ice for the morning skate yesterday, taking basically a quick lap around the rink and then leaving. That doesn’t sound like it bodes well for his chances to play tonight.
• Erik Karlsson has been on the ice much more in recent days, though he couldn’t go today he did make a comment yesterday about not being a “mascot” for this road trip. Wouldn’t expect him to rush into a return three weeks prior to the start Olympics, though the Pens could really use him if he’s able. They would have to clear up a roster spot to get Karlsson off of IR, which could easiest be accomplished by putting Letang on the IR instead.
• Beyond that, at least it’s a ‘house money’ type of game for the Pens tonight. They’re already 2-0 on their Western road trip and have a date with last place Vancouver to finish things up. Any type of positive result tonight turns what’s been a good road trip into a great one.